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BY 

THE AUTHOR OF 


“JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN,” 
“CHRISTIAN’S MISTAKE, 

&c. , &c., &c. 

tnyojjlru^ llTr 5 ' IfWoJ^tL. \VVwJU<. 


FIAT VOLUNTAS TUA. 



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WITH THE AFFECTION OF EIGHTEEN YEARS, 

TO 


UNCLE GEORGE, 




a. Nobit £ife. 


Clmptrr ijjt .first 


I 


Many years ago, how many need not be recorded, 
there lived in his ancestral castle, in the far north of 
Scotland, the last Earl of Cairnforth. 

You will not find his name in “Lodge’s Peerage,” for, 
as I say, he was the last earl, and with him the title be- 
came extinct. It had been borne for centuries by many 
noble and gallant men, who had lived worthily or died 
bravely. But I think among what we call “ heroic” lives 
— lives the story of which touches us with something 
higher than pity, and deeper than love — there never was 
any of his race who left behind a history more truly he- 
roic than he. 

Now that it is ali over and done — now that the soul so 
mysteriously given has gone back unto Him who gave 
it, and a little green turf in the kirk -yard behind Cairn- 
forth Manse covers the poor body in which it dwelt for 
more than forty years, I feel it might do good to many, 
and would do harm to none, if I related the story — a 
very simple one, and more like a biography than a tale 
— of Charles Edward Stuart Montgomerie, last Earl of 
Cairnforth. 

He did not succeed to the title ; he was born Earl of 
Cairnforth, his father having been drowned in the loch a 
month before, the wretched countess herself beholding 
the sight from her castle windows. She lived but to 


8 


A Noble Life. 


know she had a son and heir — to whom she desired 
might be given his father’s name : then she died — more 
glad than sorry to depart, for she had loved her husband 
all her life, and had only been married to him a year. 
Perhaps, had she once seen her son, she might have 
wished less to die than to live, if only for his sake ; how- 
ever, it was not God’s will that this should be. So, at 
two days old, the “poor little earl” — as from his very 
birth people began compassionately to call him — was left 
alone in the world, without a single near relative or con- 
nection, his parents having both been only children, but 
with his title, his estate, and twenty thousand a year. 

Cairnforth Castle is one of the loveliest residences in 
all Scotland. It is built on the extremity of a long 
tongue of land which stretches out between two salt-wa- 
ter lochs— Loch Beg, the “little,” and Loch Mhor, the 
“ big” lake. The latter is grand and gloomy, shut in by 
bleak mountains, which sit all round it, their feet in the 
water, and their heads in mist and cloud. But Loch Beg 
is quite different. It has green, cultivated, sloping shores, 
fringed with trees to the water’s edge, and the least ray 
of sunshine seems always to set it dimpling with wavy 
smiles. Now and then a sudden squall comes down from 
the chain of mountains far away beyond the head of the 
loch, and then its waters begin to darken — -just like a 
sudden frown over a bright face; the waves curl and 
rise, and lash themselves into foam, and any little sailing 
boat, which has been happily and safely riding over them 
five minutes before, is often struck and capsized immedi- 
ately. Thus it happened when the late earl was drowned. 

The minister — the Rev. Alexander Cardross — had 


A Noble Life . 


9 


been out sailing with him; had only just landed, and 
was watching the boat crossing back again, when the 
squall came down. Though this region is a populous 
district now, with white villas dotted like daisies all 
along the green shores, there was then not a house in 
the whole peninsula of Cairnforth except the Castle, the 
Manse, and a few cottages, called the “ clachan.” Before 
help was possible, the earl and his boatman, Neil Camp- 
bell, were both drowned. The only person saved was 
little Malcolm. Campbell — Neil’s brother — a boy about 
ten years old. 

In most country parishes of Scotland or England there 
is an almost superstitious feeling that “ the minister,” or 
“the clergyman,” must be the fittest person to break any 
terrible tidings. So it ought to be. Who but the mes- 
senger of God should know best how to communicate 
His awful will, as expressed in great visitations of calam- 
ity ? In this case no one could have been more suited 
for his solemn office than Mr. Cardross. He went up to 
the Castle door, as he had done to that of many a cottage, 
bearing the same solemn message of sudden death, to 
which there could be but one answer — “Thy will be 
done.” 

But the particulars of that terrible interview, in which 
he had to tell the countess what already her own eyes 
had witnessed — though they refused to believe the truth 
— the minister never repeated to any creature except his 
wife. And afterward, during the four weeks that Lady 
Cairnforth survived her husband, he was the only per- 
son, beyond her necessary attendants, who saw her until 
she died. 


10 


A Noble Life . 

The day after her death he was suddenly summoned 
to the castle by Mr. Menteith, an Edinburg writer to the 
signet, and confidential agent, or factor, as the office is 
called in Scotland, to the late earl. 

“ They’ll be sending for you to baptize the child. It’s 
early — but the puir bit thing may be delicate, and they 
may want it done at once, before Mr. Menteith returns to 
Edinburg.” 

“Maybe so, Helen ; so do not expect me back till you 
see me.” 

Thus saying, the minister quitted his sunshiny manse 
garden, where he was working peacefully among his rasp- 
berry-bushes, with his wife looking on, and walked, in 
meditative mood, through the Cairnforth woods, now blue 
with hyacinths in their bosky shadows, and in every nook 
and corner starred with great clusters of yellow primroses, 
which in this part of the country grow profusely, even 
down to within a few feet of high-water mark, on the 
tidal shores of the lochs. Their large, round, smiling 
faces, so irresistibly suggestive of baby smiles at sight of 
them, and baby fingers clutching at them, touched the 
heart of the good minister, who had left two small crea- 
tures of his own — a “bit girlie” of five, and a two-year- 
old boy — playing on his grass-plot at home with some 
toys of the countess’s giving : she had always been ex- 
ceedingly kind to the Manse children. 

He thought of her, lying dead ; and then of her poor 
little motherless and fatherless baby, whom, if she had 
any consciousness in her death-hour, it must have been a 
sore pang to her to leave behind. And the tears gather- 
ed again and again in the good man’s eyes, shutting out 
from his vision all the beauty of the spring. 


11 


A Noble Life . 

He reached the grand Italian portico, built by some 
former earl with a taste for that style, and yet harmoniz- 
ing well with the smooth lawn, bounded by a circle of 
magnificent trees, through which came glimpses of the 
glittering loch The great doors used almost always to 
stand open, and the windows were rarely closed — the 
countess liked sunshine and fresh air, but now all was 
shut up and silent, and not a soul was to be seen about 
the place. 

Mr. Cardross sighed, and walked round to the other 
side of the castle, where was my lady’s flower-garden, or 
what was to be made into one. Then he entered by 
French windows, from a terrace overlooking it, my lord’s 
library, also incomplete. For the earl, who was by no 
means a bookish man, had only built that room since his 
marriage, to please his wife, whom perhaps he loved all 
the better that she was so exceedingly unlike himself. 
Now both were away — their short dream of married life 
ended, their plans and hopes crumbled into dust As 
yet, no external changes had been made, the other sol- 
emn changes having come so suddenly. Gardeners still 
worked in the parterres, and masons and carpenters still, 
in a quiet and lazy manner, went on completing the 
beautiful room ; but there was no one to order them — no 
one watched their work. Except for workmen, the place 
seemed so deserted that Mr. Cardross wandered through 
the house for some time before he found a single servant 
to direct him to the person of whom he was in search. 

Mr. Menteith sat alone in a little room filled with guns 
and fishing-rods, and ornamented with stag’s heads, stuff- 
ed birds, and hunting relics of all sorts, which had been 


12 


A Noble Life . 

called, not too appropriately, the earl’s “ study.” He was 
a little, dried-up man, about fifty years old, of sharp but 
not unkindly aspect. When the minister entered, he 
looked up from the mass of papers which he seemed to 
have been trying to reduce into some kind of order — ap 
parently the late earl’s private papers, which had been 
untouched since his death, for there was a sad and seri- 
ous shadow over what would otherwise have been rather 
a humorous face. 

“Welcome, Mr. Cardross ; I am indeed glad to see you. 
I took the liberty of sending for you, since you are the 
only person with whom I can consult — we can consult, I 
should say, for Dr. Hamilton wished it likewise — on this 
— this most painful occasion.” 

“ I shall be very glad to be of the slightest service,” 
returned Mr. Cardross. “ I had the utmost respect for 
those that are away.” He had a habit, this tender-heart- 
ed, pious man, who, with all his learning, kept a religious 
faith as simple as a child’s, of always speaking of the 
dead as only “ away.” 

The two gentlemen sat down together. They had oft' 
en met before, for whenever there were guests at Cairn- 
forth Castle the earl always invited the minister and his 
wife to dinner, but they had never fraternized much. 
Now, a common sympathy, nay, more, a common grief 
• — for something beyond sympathy, keen personal regret, 
was evidently felt by both for the departed earl and 
countess — made them suddenly familiar. 

“Is the child doing well?” was Mr. Cardross’s first and 
most natural question ; but it seemed to puzzle Mr. Men- 
teith exceedingly. 


A Noble Life . 


13 


“I suppose so— indeed, I can hardly say. This is a 
most difficult and painful matter.” 

“ It was born alive, and is a son and heir, as I heard?” 

“Yes.” 

“ That is fortunate.” 

“ For some things ; since, had it been a girl, the title 
would have lapsed, and the long line of Earls of Cairn- 
forth ended. At one time Dr. Hamilton feared the child 
would be stillborn, and then, of course, the earldom would 
have been extinct. The property must in that case have 
passed to the earl’s distant cousins, the Bruces, of whom 
you may have heard, Mr. Cardross?” 

“ I have ; and there are few things, I fancy, which Lord 
Cairnforth would have regretted more than such heir- 
ship.” 

“You are right,” said the keen W. S., evidently re- 
lieved. “ It was my instinctive conviction that you were 
in the late earl’s confidence on this point, which made me 
decide to send and consult with you. We must take all 
precautions, you see. We are placed in a most painful 
and responsible position — both Dr. Hamilton and myself.” 

It was now Mr. Gardross’s turn to look perplexed. No 
doubt it was a most sad fatality which had happened, but 
still things did not seem to warrant the excessive anxiety 
testified by Mr. Menteitb. 

“ I do not quite comprehend you. There might have 
been difficulties as to the succession, but are they not all 
solved by the birth of a healthy, living heir — whom we 
must cordially hope will long continue to live?” 

“ I hardly know if we ought to hope it,” said the law- 
yer, very seriously. “ But we must 1 keep a calm sough T 


14 


A Noble Life. 


on that matter for the present — so far, at least, Dr. Ham- 
ilton and I have determined — in order to prevent the 
Bruces from getting wind of it. Now, then, will you 
oome and see the earl ?” 

“ The earl I” re-echoed Mr. Cardross, with a start ; then 
recollected himself, and sighed to think how one goes and 
another comes, and all the world moves on as before- 
passing, generation after generation, into the awful shad- 
ow which no eye except that of faith can penetrate. Life 
is a little, little day — hardly longer, in the end, for the 
man in his prime than for the infant of an hour’s span. 

And the minister, who was of meditative mood, thought 
to himself much as a poet half a century later put into 
words — thoughts common to all men, but which only 
such a man and such a poet could have crystallized into 
four such perfect lines : 

*' ‘Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: 

Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 

He thinks he was not made to die, 

And Thou hast made him — Thou art just.” 

Thus musing, Mr. Cardross followed up stairs toward 
the magnificent nursery, which had been prepared months 
before, with a loving eagerness of anticipation, and a mer- 
ciful blindness to futurity, for the expected heir of the 
Earls of Cairnforth. For, as before said, the only hope 
of the lineal continuance of the race was in this one child. 
It lay in a cradle resplendent with white satin hangings 
and lace curtains, and beside it sat the nurse — a mere 
girl, but a widow already — Neil Campbell’s widow, whose 
first child had been born only two days after her husband 
was drowned. Mr. Cardross knew that she had been sud- 


A Noble Life . 


15 


denly sent for out of the clachan, the countess having, 
with her dying breath, desired that this young woman, 
whose circumstances were so like her own, should be 
taken as wet-nurse to the new-born baby. 

So, in her widow’s weeds, grave and sad, but very 
sweet-looking — she had been a servant at the Castle, and 
was a rather superior young woman — Janet Campbell 
took her place beside her charge with an expression in 
her face as if she felt it was a charge left her by her lost 
mistress, which must be kept solemnly to the end of her 
days — as it was. 

The minister shook hands with her silently — she had 
gone through sore affliction — but the lawyer addressed 
her in his quick, sharp, business tone, under which he 
often disguised more emotion than he liked to show. 

“You have not been dressing the child? Dr. Hamil- 
ton told you not to attempt it.” 

“Na, na, sir, I didna try,” answered Janet, sadly and 
gently. 

“ That was well. I’m a father of a family myself,” 
added Mr. Menteith, more gently : “ I’ve six of them ; 
but, thank the Lord, ne’er a one of them like this. Take 
it on your lap, nurse, and let the minister look at it ! Ay, 
here comes Dr. Hamilton !” 

Mr. Cardross knew Dr. Hamilton by repute — as who 
did not? since at that period it was the widest-known 
name in the whole medical profession in Scotland. And 
the first sight of him confirmed the reputation, and made 
even a stranger recognize that his fame was both natural 
and justifiable. But the minister had scarcely time to 
cast a glance on the acute, benevolent, wonderfully pow- 


16 


A Noble Life . 


erful and thoughtful head, when his attention was attract* 
ed by the poor infant, whom Janet was carefully unswath- 
ing from innumerable folds of cotton wool. 

Mrs. Campbell was a widow of only a month, and her 
mistress, to whom she had been much attached, lay dead 
in the next room, yet she had still a few tears left, and 
they were dropping like rain over her mistress’s child. 

No wonder. It lay on her lap, the smallest, saddest 
specimen of infantile deformity. It had a large head — 
larger than most infants have — but its body was thin, elf- 
ish, and distorted, every joint and limb being twisted in 
some way or other. You could not say that any portion 
of the child was natural or perfect except the head and 
face. Whether it had the power of motion or not seem- 
ed doubtful ; at any rate, it made no attempt to move, 
except feebly turning its head from side to side. It lay, 
with its large eyes wide open, and at last opened its poor 
little mouth also, and uttered a loud pathetic wail. 

“It greets, doctor, ye hear,” said the nurse, eagerly; 
“ ’deed, an’ it greets fine, whiles.” 

“A good sign,” observed Dr. Hamilton. “Perhaps it 
may live after all, though one scarcely knows whether to 
desire it.” 

“ I’ll gar it live, doctor,” cried Janet, as she rocked and 
patted it, and at last managed to lay it to her motherly 
breast ; “ I’ll gar it live, ye’ll see ! That is, God will- 
ing.” 

“ It could not live, it could never have lived at all, if 
He were not willing,” said the minister, reverently. And 
then, after a long pause, during which he and the two 
other gentlemen stood watching, with sad pitying looks, 


17 


A Noble Life . 

the unfortunate child, he added, so quietly and naturally 
that, though they might have thought it odd, they could 
hardly have thought it out of place or hypocritical, “ Let 
us pray.” 

It was a habit, long familiar to this good Presbyterian 
minister, who went in and out among his parishioners as 
their pastor and teacher, consoler and guide. Many a 
time, in many a cottage, had he knelt down, just as he 
did here, in the midst of deep affliction, and said a few 
simple words, as from children to a father — the Father 
of all men. And the beginning and end of his prayer 
was, now as always, the expression and experience of his 
own entire faith — “ Thy will be done.” 

“But what ought we to do?” said the Edinburg writ- 
er, when, having quitted, not unmoved, the melancholy 
nursery, he led the way to the scarcely less dreary din- 
ing-room, where the two handsome, bright-looking por- 
traits of the late earl and countess still smiled down from 
the wall — giving Mr. Cardross a start, and making him 
recall, as if the intervening six weeks had been all a 
dream, the last day he and Mr. Menteith dined together 
at that hospitable table. They stole a look at one anoth- 
er, but, with true Scotch reticence, neither exchanged a 
word. Yet perhaps each respected the other the more, 
both for the feeling and for its instant repression. 

“ Whatever we decide to do, ought to be decided now,” 
said Dr. Hamilton, “for I must be in Edinburg to-mor- 
row. And, besides, it is a case in which no medical skill 
is of much avail, if any: Nature must struggle through — 
or yield, which I can not help thinking would be the best 
ending. In Sparta, now, this poor child would have been 


18 


A Noble Life. 

exposed on Mount — what was the place ? to be saved by 
any opportune death from the still greater misfortune of 
living.” 

“But that would have been murder — sheer murder,* 
earnestly replied the minister. “ And we are not Spar- 
tans, but Christians, to whom the body is not every thing, 
and who believe that God can work out His wonderful 
will, if He chooses, through the meanest means — through 
the saddest tragedies and direst misfortunes. In one 
sense, Dr. Hamilton, there is no such thing as evil — that 
is, there is no actual evil in the world except sin.” 

“ There is plenty of that, alas !” said Mr. Menteith. 
“ But as to the child, I wished you to see it — both of you 
together — if only to bear evidence as to its present con- 
dition. For the late earl, in his will, executed, by a most 
providential chance, the last time I was here, appointed 
me sole guardian and trustee to a possible widow or child. 
On me, therefore, depends the charge of this poor infant 
« — the sole bar between those penniless, grasping, alto- 
gether discreditable Bruces, and the large property of 
Cairnforth. You see my position, gentlemen?” 

It was not an easy one, and no wonder the honest man 
looked much troubled. 

“ I need not say that I never sought it — never thought 
it possible it would really fall to my lot ; but it has fall- 
en, and I must discharge it to the best of my ability. You 
see what the earl is — born alive, anyhow — though we 
can hardly wish him to survive.” 

The three gentlemen were silent. At length Mr. Car- 
dross said, 

“ There is one worse doubt which has occurred to me. 


A Noble Life. 


19 


Do you think, Dr. Hamilton, that the mind is as imperfect 
as the body ? In short, is it not likely that the poor 
child may turn out to be an idiot?” 

“ I do not know ; and it will be almost impossible to 
judge for months yet.” 

“ But, idiot or not,” cried Mr. Menteith — a regular old 
Tory, who clung with true conservative veneration to the 
noble race which he, his father, and grandfather had 
served faithfully for a century and more — “ idiot or not, 
the boy is undoubtedly Earl of Cairnforth.” 

“ Poor child !” 

The gentlemen then sat down and thoroughly discuss- 
ed the whole matter, finally deciding that, until things 
appeared somewhat plainer, it was advisable to keep the 
earl’s condition as much as possible from the world in 
general, and more especially from his own kindred. The 
Bruces, who lived abroad, would, it was naturally to be 
concluded — or Mr. Menteith, who had a lawyer’s slender 
faith in human nature, believed so — would pounce down, 
like eagles upon a wounded lamb, the instant they heard 
what a slender thread of life hung between them and 
these great possessions. 

Under such circumstances, for the infant to be left un- 
protected in the solitudes of Loch Beg was very unad vis- 
able ; and, besides, it was the guardian’s duty to see that 
every aid which medical skill and surgical science could 
procure was supplied to a child so afflicted, and upon 
whose life so much depended. He therefore proposed, 
and Dr. Hamilton agreed, that immediately after the fu- 
neral the little earl should be taken to Edinburg, and 
placed in the house of the latter, to remain there a year 
or two, or so long as might be necessary. 


20 


A Noble Life. 

Janet Campbell was called in, and expressed herself 
willing to take her share — no small one — in the respon- 
sibility of this plan, if the minister would see to her “ ain 
bairn that was, if the minister really thought the scheme 
a wise one. 

“ The minister’s opinion seems to carry great weight 
here,” said Dr. Hamilton, smiling. 

And it was so ; not merely because of his being a min- 
ister, but because, with all his gentle, unassuming ways, 
he had an excellent judgment — the clear, sound, unbi- 
ased judgment which no man can ever attain to except a 
man who thinks little of himself ; to whom his own hon- 
or and glory come ever second, and his Master’s glory 
and service first. Therefore, both as a man and a minis- 
ter, Mr. Cardross was equally and wholly reliable : char- 
itable, because he felt his own infirmities ; placing him- 
self at no higher level than his neighbor, he was always 
calmly and scrupulously just. Though a learned, he was 
not exactly a clever man : probably his sermons, preach- 
ed every Sunday for the last ten years in Cairnforth Kirk, 
were neither better nor worse than the generality of 
country sermons ; but that matters little. He was a wise 
man and a good man, and all his parishioners, scattered 
over a parish of fourteen Scotch miles, deeply and dearly 
loved him. 

“I think,” said Mr. Cardross, “ that this plan has many 
advantages, and is, under the circumstances, the best that 
could have been devised. True, I should like to have 
had the poor babe under my own eye and my wife’s, that 
we might try to requite in some degree the many kind- 
nesses we have received from his poor father and moth* 


21 


A Noble Life . 

er ; but he will be better off in Edinburg. Give him ev- 
ery possible chance of life and health, and a sound mind, 
and then we must leave the rest to Him, who would not 
have sent this poor little one into the world at all if He 
had not had some purpose in so doing, though what that 
purpose is we can not see. I suppose we shall see it, and 
many other dark things, some time.” 

The minister lifted his grave, gentle eyes, and sat look- 
ing out upon the familiar view — the sunshiny loch, the 
green shore, and the far-away circle of mountains — while 
the other two gentlemen discussed a few other business 
matters. Then he invited them both to return with him 
and dine at the Manse, where he and his wife were accus- 
tomed to offer to all comers, high and low, rich and poor, 
“ hospitality without grudging.” 

So the three walked through Cairnforth woods, now 
glowing with full spring beauty, and wandered about the 
minister’s garden till dinner-time. It was a very simple 
meal — -just the ordinary family dinner, as it was spread 
day after day, all the year round : they could afford hos- 
pitality, but show, with the minister’s limited income, was 
impossible, and he was too honest to attempt it. Many 
a time the earl himself had dined, merrily and heartily, 
at that simple table, with the mistress — active, energetic, 
cheerful, and refined — sitting at the head of it, and the 
children, a girl and boy, already admitted to take their 
place there, quiet and well-behaved — brought up from 
the first to be, like their parents, gentlemen and gentle- 
women. The Manse table was a perfect picture of fami- 
ly sunshine and family peace, and, as such, the two Edin- 
burg guests carried away the impression of it in their 
memories for many a day. 


A Noble Life. 


TA 

In another week a second stately funeral passed out of 
the Castle doors, and then they were closed to all corn- 
era By Mr. Menteith’s orders, great part of the rooms 
were shut up, and only two apartments kept for his own 
ase when he came down to look after the estates. It 
Was now fully known that he was the young earl’s sole 
guardian ; but so great was the feudal fidelity of the 
neighborhood, and so entire the respect with which, dur- 
ing an administration of many years, the factor had im- 
bued the Cairnforth tenantry, that not a word was said 
in objection either to him or to his doings. There was 
great regret that the poor little earl — the representative 
of So long and honored a race — was taken away from the 
admiration of the country-side before even a single soul 
in the parish, except Mr. and Mrs. Cardross, had set eyes 
upon him ; but still the disappointed gossips submitted, 
considering that if the minister were satisfied all must be 
right. 

After the departure of Mr. Menteith, Mrs. Campbell, 
and her charge, a few rumors got abroad that the little 
earl was “ no a’ richt” — if an earl could be “ no richt” — 
which the simple folk about Loch Beg and Loch Mhor, 
accustomed for generations to view the Earls of Cairn- 
forth much as the Thibetians view their Dalai Lama, 
thought hardly possible. But what was wrong with him 
nobody precisely knew. The minister did, it was con- 
jectured; but Mr. Cardross was scrupulously silent on 
the subject; and, with all his gentleness, he was the sort 
of man to whom nobody ever could address intrusive or 
impertinent questions. 

So, after a while, when the Castle still remained shut 


A Noble Life . 


23 


tip, curiosity died out, or was only roused at intervals, 
especially at Mr. Menteith’s periodical visits. And to all 
questions, whether respectfully anxious or merely inquis- 
itive, he never gave but one answer — that the earl wai 
u doing pretty well,” and would be back at Cairnforth 
‘some o’ these days.” 

However, that period was so long deferred that the 
neighbors at last ceased to expect it, or to speculate con- 
cerning it. They went about their own affairs, and soon 
the whole story about the sad death of the late earl and 
countess, and the birth of the present nobleman, began to 
be told simply as a story by the elder folk, and slipped 
out of the younger ones’ memories — as, if one only al- 
lows it time, every tale, however sad, wicked, or strange, 
will very soon do. Had it not been for the silent, shut- 
up castle, standing summer and winter on the loch-side, 
with its flower-gardens blossoming for none to gather, 
and its woods — the pride of the whole country — budding 
and withering, with scarcely a foot to cross, or an eye to 
notice their wonderful beauty, people would ere long 
have forgotten the very existence of the last Earl of 
Cairnforth. 




CJraptnr tjj t Ikamii. 



It was on a June day — ten years after that bright June 
day when the minister of Cairnforth had walked with 
such a sad heart up to Cairnforth Castle, and seen for the 
first time its unconscious heir — the poor little orphan 
baby, who in such apparent mockery was called “ the 
Earl.’ 7 The woods, the hills, the loch, looked exactly the 
same — nature never changes. As Mr. Cardross walked 
up to the Castle once more — the first time for many 
months — in accordance with a request of Mr. Menteith’s, 
who had written to say the earl was coming home, he 
could hardly believe it was ten years since that sad week 
when the baby-heir was born, and the countess’s funeral 
had passed out from that now long-closed door. 

Mr. Cardross’s step was heavier and his face sadder 
now than then. He who had so often sympathized with 
others’ sorrows had had to suffer patiently his own. From 
the Manse gate as from that of the Castle, the mother and 
mistress had been carried, never to return. A new Hel- 
en — only fifteen years old — was trying vainly to replace 
to father and brothers her who was — as Mr. Cardross still 
touchingly put it — u away.” But, though his grief was 
more than a year old, the minister mourned still. His 
was one of those quiet natures which make no show, and 
trouble no one, yet in which sorrow goes deep down, and 


28 


A Noble Life . 

grows into the heart, as it were, becoming a part of exist* 
ence, until existence itself shall cease. 

It did not, however, hinder him from doing all his or- 
dinary duties, perhaps with even closer persistence, as he 
felt himself sinking into that indifference to outside things 
which is the inevitable result of a heavy loss upon any 
gentle nature. The fierce rebel against it ; the impetu- 
ous and impatient throw it off; but the feeble and ten- 
der souls make no sign, only quietly pass into that state 
which the outer world calls submission and resignation, 
yet which is, in truth, mere passiveness — the stolid calm 
of a creature that has suffered till it can suffer no more. 

The first thing which roused Mr. Cardross out of this 
condition, or at least the uneasy recognition that it was 
fast approaching, and must be struggled against, consci- 
entiously, to the utmost of his power, was Mr. Menteith’s 
letter, and the request therein concerning Lord Cairn- 
forth. 

Without entering much into particulars — it was not 
the way of the cautious lawyer — he had stated that, after 
ten years’ residence in Dr. Hamilton’s house, and numer- 
ous consultations with every surgeon of repute in Scot- 
land, England — nay, Europe — it had been decided, and 
especially at the earnest entreaty of the poor little earl 
himself, to leave him to Nature ; to take him back to his 
native air, and educate him, so far as was possible, in 
Cairnforth Castle. 

A suitable establishment had accordingly been pro* 
vided — more servants, and a lady housekeeper or gouv * 
ernante , who took all external charge of the child, while 
the personal care of him was left, as before, to his nurse, 


A Noble Life . 


29 


Mrs. Campbell, now wholly devoted to him, for at seven 
years old her own boy had died. He had another at- 
tendant, to whom, with a curious persistency, he had 
strongly attached himself ever since his babyhood — • 
young Malcolm Campbell, Neil Campbell’s brother, who 
was saved by clinging to the keel of the boat when the 
late Lord Cairnforth was drowned. Beyond these, whose 
fond fidelity knew no bounds, there was hardly need of 
any other person to take charge of the little earl, except 
a tutor, and that office Mr. Menteith entreated Mr. Car- 
dross to accept. 

It was a doubtful point with the minister. He shrank 
from assuming any new duty, his daily duties being now 
made only too heavy by the loss of the wife who had 
shared and lightened them all. But he named the mat- 
ter to Helen, whom he had lately got into the habit of 
consulting — she was such a wise little woman for her age 
—and Helen said anxiously , 11 Papa, try.” Besides, there 
were six boys to be brought up, and put into the world 
somehow, and the Manse income was small, and the sala- 
ry offered by Mr. Menteith very considerable. So when, 
the second time, Helen’s great soft eyes implored silent- 
ly, “Papa, please try,” the minister kissed her, went into 
his study and wrote to Edinburg his acceptance of the 
office of tutor to Lord Cairnforth. 

What sort of office it would turn out — what kind of 
instruction he was expected to give, or how much the 
young earl was capable of receiving, he had not the least 
idea ; but he resolved that, in any case, he would do his 
duty, and neither man nor minister could be expected to 
do more. 


so 


A Noble Life. 

In pursuance of this resolution, he roused himself that 
gunny June morning, when he would far rather have sat 
over his study-fire and let the world go on without him 
—as he felt it would, easily enough — and walked down 
to the Castle, where, for the first time these ten years, 
windows were opened and doors unbarred, and the sweet 
fight and warm air of day let in upon those long-shut 
rooms, which seemed, in their dumb, inanimate way, glad 
to be happy again — glad to be made of use once more. 
Even the portraits of the late earl and countess — he in 
his Highland dress, and she in her white satin and pearls 
— both so young and bright, as they looked on the day 
they were married, seemed to gaze back at each other 
from either side the long dining-room, as if to say, re- 
joicingly, “ Our son is coming home.” 

“Have you seen the earl?” said Mr. Cardross to one 
of the new servants who attended him round the rooms, 
listening respectfully to all the remarks and suggestions 
as to furniture and the like which Mr. Menteith had re- 
quested him to make. The minister was always special- 
ly popular with servants and inferiors of every sort, for 
he possessed, in a remarkable degree, that best key to 
their hearts, the gentle dignity which never needs to as- 
sert a superiority that is at once felt and acknowledged. 

“The earl, sir? Na, na” — with a mysterious shake of 
the head — “naebody sees the earl. Some say — but I 
hae nae cause to think it mysel’ — that he’s no a’ there.” 

The minister was sufficiently familiar with that queer, 
but very expressive Scotch phrase, “ not all there,” to 
pursue no farther inquiries. But he sighed, and wished 
he had delayed a little before undertaking the tutorship. 


A Noble Life. 


31 


However, the matter was settled now, and Mr. Cardrosa 
was not the man ever to draw back from an agreement 
or shrink from a promise. 

“ Whatever the poor child is — even if an idiot,” thought 
he, “I will do my best for him, for his father’s and moth- 
er’s sake.” 

And he paused several minutes before those bright 
and smiling portraits, pondering on the mysterious deal- 
ings of the great Euler of the universe — how some are 
taken and some are left : those removed who seem most 
happy and most needed ; those left behind whom it would 
have appeared, in our dim and short-sighted judgment, 
a mercy, both to themselves and others, quietly to have 
taken away. 

But one thing the minister did in consequence of these 
somewhat sad and painful musings. On his return to the 
olachan — where, of course, the news of the earl’s coming 
home had long spread, and thrown the whole country- 
side into a state of the greatest excitement— he gave or- 
ders, or at least advice — which was equivalent to orders, 
since every body obeyed him — that there should be no 
special rejoicings on the earl’s coming home ; no bonfire 
on the hill-side, or triumphal arches across the road, and 
at the ferry where the young earl would probably land 
— where, ten years before, the late Earl of Cairn forth 
had been not landed, but carried, stone-cold, with his hair 
dripping, and his dead hands still clutching the weeds of 
the loch. The minister vividly recalled the sight, and 
shuddered at it still. 

“ No, no,” said he, in talking the matter over with 
flome of his people, whom he went among like a father 


32 


A Noble Life. 

among his children, true pastor of a most loving flock, 
“ no ; we’ll wait and see what the earl would like before 
we make any show. That we are glad to see him he 
knows well enough, or will very soon find out. And if 
he should arrive on such a night as this” — looking found 
Dn the magnificent June sunset, coloring the mountains 
at the head of the loch — “ he will hardly need a brighter 
welcome to a bonnier home.” 

But the earl did not arrive on a gorgeous evening like 
this, such as come sometimes to the shores of Loch Beg, 
and make it glow into a perfect paradise : he arrived in 
“ saft” weather — in fact, on a pouring wet Saturday night, 
and all the clachan saw of him was the outside of his car- 
riage, driving, with closed blinds, down the hill-side. He 
had taken a long round, and had not crossed the ferry ; 
and he was carried as fast as possible through the drip • 
ping wood, reaching, just as darkness fell, the Castle 
door. 

Mr. Cardross, perhaps, should have been there to wel- 
come the child — his conscience rather smote him that he 
was not — but it was the minister’s unbroken habit of 
years to spend Saturday evening alone in his study. 
And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in 
his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wish- 
ed to put off as long as possible what must inevitably be 
awkward, and might be very painful. So, in darkness 
and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants, most of 
whom even had never yet seen him, the poor little earl 
same to his ancestral door. 

But on Sunday morning all things were changed, with 
one of those sudden changes which make this part of 


A Noble Life . 


33 


the country so wonderfully beautiful, and so fascinating 
through its endless variety. 

A perfect June day, with the loch glittering in the sun, 
and the hills beyond it softly outlined with the indistinct- 
ness that mountains usually wear in summer, but with 
the soft summer coloring too, greenish-blue, lilac, and sil- 
ver-gray varying continually. In the woods behind, 
where the leaves were already gloriously green, the wood- 
pigeons were cooing, and the blackbirds and mavises 
singing, just as if it had not been Sunday morning, or 
rather as if they knew it was Sunday, and were strain- 
ing their tiny throats to bless the Giver of sweet, peace- 
ful, cheerful Sabbath-days, and of all other good things, 
meant for man’s usage and delight. 

At the portico of Cairnforth Castle, for the first time 
since the hearse had stood there, stood a carriage — one 
of those large, roomy, splendid family carriages which 
were in use many years ago. Looking at it, no passer- 
by could have the slightest doubt that it was my lord’s 
coach, and that my lord sat therein in solemn state, ex- 
acting and receiving an amount of respect little short of 
veneration, such as, for generations, the whole country- 
side had always paid to the Earls of Cairnforth. This 
coach, though it was the identical family coach, had been 
newly furnished ; its crimson satin glowed, and its silver 
harness and ornaments flashed in the sun ; the coachman 
sat in his place, and two footmen stood up in their places 
behind. It was altogether a very splendid affair, as be- 
came the equipage of a young nobleman who was known 
to possess twenty thousand a year, and who, from his cas- 
tle tower — it had a tower, though nobody ever climbed 
3 


34 


A Noble Life 

there — might, if he chose, look around upon miles and 
miles of moorland, loch, hill-side, and cultivated land, and 
say to himself — or be said to by his nurse, as in the old 
song — 

“These hills and these vales, from this tower that ye see, 

They all shall belong, my young chieftain, to thee.” 

The horses pawed the ground for several minutes of 
delay, and then there appeared Mr. Menteith, followed by 
Mrs. Campbell, who was quite a grand lady now, in silks 
and satins, but with the same sweet, sad, gentle face. The 
lawyer and she stood aside, and made way for a big, stal- 
wart young Highlander of about one-and-twenty or there- 
abouts, who carried in his arms, very gently and careful- 
ly, wrapped in a plaid, even although it was such a mild 
spring day, what looked like a baby, or a very young 
child. 

“Stop a minute, Malcolm.’’ 

At the sound of that voice, which was not an infant’s, 
though it was thin, and sharp, and unnatural rather for 
a boy, the big Highlander paused immediately. 

“ Hold me up higher; I want to look at the loch.” 

“Yes, my lord.” 

This, then — this poor little deformed figure, with every 
limb shrunken and useless, and every joint distorted, the 
head just able to sustain itself and turn feebly from one 
side to the other, and the thin white hands piteously 
twisted and helpless-looking — this, then, was the Earl of 
Cairnforth. 

“ It’s a bonnie loch, Malcolm.” 

“ It looks awfu’ bonnie the day, my lord.” 


A Noble Life . 35 

“ And,” almost in a whisper, “ was it just there my fa- 
ther was drowned ?” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 

No one spoke while the large, intelligent eyes, which 
seemed the principal feature of the thin face, that rested 
against Malcolm’s shoulder, looked out intently upon the 
loch. 

Mrs. Campbell pulled her veil down and wept a little. 
People said Neil Campbell had not been the best of hus- 
bands to her ; but he was her husband ; and she had 
never been back in Cairnforth till now, for her son had 
lived, died, and been buried away in Edinburg. 

At last Mr. Menteith suggested that the kirk bell was 
beginning to ring. 

“Very well; put me into the carriage.” 

Malcolm placed him, helpless as an infant, in a corner 
of the silken-padded coach, fitted with cushions especial- 
ly suited for his comfort. There he sat, in his black vel- 
vet coat and point -lace collar, with silk stockings and 
dainty shoes upon the poor little feet that never had 
walked, and never would walk, in this world. The one 
bit of him that could be looked at without pain was his 
face, inherited from his beautiful mother. It was wan, 
pale, and much older than his years, but it was a sweet 
face — a lovely face ; so patient, thoughtful — nay, strange 
to say, content You could not look at it without a cer- 
tain sense of peace, as if God, in taking away so much, 
had given something — which not many people have — 
something which was the divine answer to the minister’s 
prayer over the two-days-old child — “Thy will be done.” 

“Are you comfortable, my lord?” 


36 A Noble Life. 

“ Quite, thank you, Mr. Menteith. Stop — where are 
you going, Malcolm ?” 

“Just to the kirk, and I’ll be there as soon as your 
lordship.” 

“ Yery well,” said the little earl, and watched with 
wistful eyes the tall Highlander striding across brush- 
wood and heather, leaping dikes and clearing fences — 
the very embodiment of active, vigorous youth. 

Wistful I said the eyes were, and yet they were not 
sad. Whatever thoughts lay hidden in that boy’s mind 
— he was only ten years old, remember — they were cer- 
tainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair. “ God tem- 
pers the wind to the shorn lamb,” and “ the back is fitted 
to the burden,” are phrases so common that we almost 
smile to repeat them or believe in them, and yet they are 
true. Any one whose enjoyments have been narrowed 
down by long sickness may prove their truth by recol- 
lecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleas- 
ures passes away. And in this case the deprivation was 
not sudden ; the child had been born thus crippled, and 
had never been accustomed to any other sort of existence 
than this. What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might 
have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet 
reflected upon his own condition at all, those about him 
could not judge. He was always a silent child, and lat- 
terly had grown more silent than ever. It was this si- 
lence, causing a fear lest the too rapidly developing mind 
might affect still more injuriously the imperfect and fee- 
ble body, which induced his guardian, counseled by Dr. 
Hamilton, to try a total change of life by sending him 
home to the shores of Loch Beg. 


A Noble Life . 


37 


One thing certainly Mr. Cardross need not have dread* 
ed — the child was no idiot. An intelligence, precocious 
to an almost painful extent, was visible in that poor lit* 
tie face, which seemed thirstingly to take in every thing, 
and to let nothing escape its observation. 

The carriage drove slowly through the woods and 
along the shore of the loch, Mr. Menteith and Mrs. Camp- 
bell sitting opposite to the earl, not noticing him much — 
even as a child he was sensitive of being watched — but 
making occasional comments on the scenery and other 
things. 

“There is the kirk tower; I mind it weel,” said Mrs. 
Campbell, who still kept some accent of the clachan, 
though, like many Highlanders, she had it more in tone 
than in pronunciation, and often spoke almost pure En- 
glish, which, indeed, she had taken pains to acquire, lest 
she might be transferred from her charge for fear of 
teaching him to speak as a young nobleman ought not 
to speak. But at sight of her native place some touch 
of the old tongue returned. 

“ That is the kirk, nurse, where my father and mother 
are buried ?” 

“ Yes, my lord.” 

“Will there be many people there? You know I 
never went to church but once before in all my life.” 

“ Would ye like not to go now? If so, I’ll turn back 
with ye this minute, my lamb — my lord, I mean.” 

“No, thank you, nurse, I like to go. You know Mr. 
Menteith promised me I should go about every where as 
soon as I came to live at Cairn forth.” 

“ Every where you like that is not too much trouble 


88 


A Noble Life . 

to your lordship,” said Mr. Menteith, who was always te- 
naciously careful about the respect, of word and act, that 
he paid, and insisted should be paid, to his poor young 

ward. 

“ Oh, it’s no trouble to me ; Malcolm takes care of that. 
A.nd I like to see the world. If you and Dr. Hamilton 
would have let me, I think I would so have enjoyed go- 
ing to school like other boys.” 

“ Would you, my lord?” answered Mr. Menteith, com- 
passionately ; but Mrs. Campbell, who never could bear 
that pitying look and tone directed toward her nursling, 
said, a little sharply, 

“ It’s better as it is — dinna ye ken ? Far mair fitting 
for his lordship’s rank and position that he should get 
his learning all by himsel’ at his ain castle, and with his 
ain tutor, and that sic a gentleman as Mr. Cardross — ” 

“ What is Mr. Cardross like?” 

“Ye’ll hear him preach the day.” 

“ Will he teach me all by myself, as nurse says? Has 
he any children — any boys, like me ?” 

“ He has boys,” said Mr. Menteith, avoiding more ex- 
plicit information ; for with a natural, if mistaken precau- 
tion, he had always kept his own sturdy, stalwart boys 
quite out of the way of the poor little earl, and had es- 
pecially cautioned the minister to do the same. 

“ I do long to play with boys. May I?” 

“ If you wish it, my lord.” 

“ And may I have a boat on that beautiful loch, and 
be rowed about just where I please? Malcolm says it 
would not shake me nearly so much as the carriage. 
May I go to the kirk every Sunday, and see every thing 


A Noble Life. 


39 


and every body, and read as many books as ever 1 
choose ? Oh, how happy I shall be ! — as happy as a 
king !” 

u God help thee, my lamb !” muttered Mrs. Campbell 
to herself, while even Mr. Menteith turned his face sedu- 
lously toward the loch and took snuff violently. 

By this time they had reached the church door, where 
the congregation were already gathering and hanging 
about, as Scotch congregations do, till service begins. But 
of this service and this Sunday, which was so strangely 
momentous a day in more lives than one, the next chap- 
ter muM teJJ* 





I 


Chapter tjj t €$xk 



The carriage of the Earl of Cairnforth, with its famil- 
iar and yet long unfamiliar liveries, produced a keen sen- 
sation among the simple folk who formed the congrega- 
tion of Cairnforth. But they had too much habitual re- 
spect for the great house and great folk of the place, min- 
gled with their national shyness and icdependence, to 
stare very much. A few moved aside to make way for 
the two grand Edinburg footmen who leaped down from 
their perch in order to render customary assistance to 
the occupants of the carriage. 

Mrs. Campbell and Mr. Menteith descended first, and 
then the two footmen looked puzzled as to what they 
should do next. 

But Malcolm was before them — Malcolm, who never 
suffered mortal man but himself to render the least as- 
sistance to his young master ; who watched and tended 
him ; waited on and fed him in the day, and slept in his 
room at night; who, in truth, had now, for a year past, 
slipped into all the offices of a nurse as well as servant, 
and performed them with a woman’s tenderness, care, 
and skill. Lord Cairnforth’s eyes brightened when he 
saw him ; and, carried in Malcolm’s arms — a few strag- 
glers of the congregation standing aside to let them pass 
— the young earl was brought to the door of the kirk 
where his family had worshiped for generations. 


14 


A Noble Life . 


Two elders stood there beside the plate — white-headed 
farmers, who remembered both the late lord and the one 
before him. 

“ Yon’s the earl,” whispered they, and came forward 
respectfully ; then, startled by the unexpected and piti- 
ful sight, they shrank back ; but either the boy did not 
notice this, or was so used to it that he showed no sur- 
prise. 

“ My purse, Malcolm,” the small, soft voice was heard 
to say. 

“Ay, my lord. What will ye put into the plate?” 

“ A guinea, I think, to - day, because I am so very 
happy.” 

This answer, which the two elders overheard, was told 
by them next day to every body, and remembered along 
the loch-side for years. 

Cairnforth Kirk, like most other Scotch churches of 
ancient date, is very plain within and without, and the 
congregation then consisted almost entirely of hill-side 
farmers, shepherds, and the like, who arrived in families 
— dogs and all, for the dogs always came to church, and 
behaved there as decorously as their masters. Many of 
the people walked eight, ten, and even twelve miles, from 
the extreme boundary of the parish, and waited about in 
the kirk or kirk-yard on fine Sundays, and in the Manse 
kitchen on wet ones — which were much the most fre- 
quent — during the two hours’ interval between sermons. 

In the whole congregation there was hardly a person 
above the laboring class except in the minister’s pew and 
that belonging to the Castle, which had been newly lined 
and cushioned, and in a corner of which, safely deposited 


45 


A Noble Life. 

by Malcolm, the little earl now sat — sat always, even 
daring the prayer, at which some of the congregation 
looked reprovingly round, but only saw the little figure 
wrapped in a plaid, and the sweet, wan, childish, and yet 
unchild - like face, with the curly dark hair, and large 
dark eyes. 

Whatever in the earl was “ no a’ richt,” it certainly 
could not be his mind, for a brighter, more intelligent 
countenance was never seen. It quite startled the min- 
ister with the intentness of its gaze from the moment he 
ascended the pulpit ; and though he tried not to look 
that way, and was very nervous, he could not get over 
the impression it made. It was to him almost like a face 
from the grave — this strange, eerie child’s face, so strong- 
ly resembling that of the dead countess, who, despite the 
difference in rank, had, during the brief year she lived 
and reigned at Cairnforth, been almost like an equal 
friend and companion to his own dead wife. Their two 
faces — Lady Cairnforth’s as she looked the last time he 
saw her in her coffin, and his wife’s as she lay in hers — 
mingled together, and affected him powerfully. 

The good minister was not remarkable for the brillian- 
cy of his sermons, which he wrote and “ committed” — that 
is, learned by heart, to deliver in pseudo-extempore fash- 
ion, as was the weary custom of most Scotch ministers 
of his time. But this Sunday, all that he had committed 
slipped clean out of his memory. He preached as he had 
never been known to preach before, and never preach- 
ed again — with originality, power, eloquence; speaking 
from his deepest heart, as if the words thence pouring out 
had been supernaturally put into it ; which, with a su- 


46 


A Noble Life . 

perstition that approached to sublimest faith, he afterward 
solemnly believed they had been. 

The text was that verse about “ all things working to- 
gether for good to them that love God but, whatever 
the original discourse had been, it wandered off into a 
subject which all who knew the minister recognized as 
one perpetually close to his heart — submission to the will 
of God, whatever that will might be, and however incom- 
prehensible it seemed to mortal eyes. 

“ Not, my friends,” said he, after speaking for a long 
time on this head — speaking rather than sermonizing, 
which, like many cultivated but not very original minds, 
he was too prone to do — “ not that I would encourage or 
excuse that weak yielding to calamity which looks like 
submission, but is, in fact, only cowardice ; submitting to 
all things as to a sort of fatality, without struggling 
against them, or trying to distinguish how much of them 
is the will of God, and how much our own weak will ; 
daunted by the first shadow of misfortune, especially mis* 
fortunes in our worldly affairs, wherein so much often 
happens for which we have ourselves only to blame. 
Submission to man is one thing, submission to God am 
other. The latter is divine, the former is often merely 
contemptible. But even to the Almighty Father we 
should yield not a blind, crushed resignation, but an open- 
eyed obedience, like that we would fain win from our 
own children, desiring to make of them children, not 
slaves. 

“ My children — for I speak to the very youngest of 
you here, and do try to understand me if you can, or as 
much as you can — it is right — it is God’s will — that you 




A Noble Life . 


47 


should resist, to the very last, any trial which is not in- 
evitable. There are in this world countless sorrows, 
which, so far as appears, we actually bring on ourselves 
and others by our own folly, wickedness, or weakness — 
which is often as fatal as wickedness ; and then we blame 
Providence for it, and sink into total despair. But when, 
as sometimes happens, His heavy hand is laid upon us in 
a visible, inevitable misfortune which we can not strug- 
gle against, and from which no human aid can save us, 
then we ought to learn His hardest lesson — to submit. 
To submit — yet still, while saying ‘ Thy will be done/ to 
strive, so far as we can, to do it. If He have taken from 
us all but one talent, even that, my children, let us not 
bury in a napkin. Let us rather put it out at usury, 
leaving to Him to determine how much we shall receive 
again ; for it is according to our use of what we have, 
and not of what we have not, that He will call us 1 good 
and faithful servants,’ and at last, when the long struggle 
of living shall be over, will bid us ‘enter into the joy of 
our Lord.’ ” 

When the minister sat down, he saw, as he had seen, 
consciously or unconsciously, all through the service, and 
above the entire congregation, those two large intent eyes 
fixed upon him from the Cairnforth pew. 

Children of ten years old do not usually listen much 
to sermons, but the little earl had heard very few, for it 
was difficult to take him to church without so many peo- 
ple staring at him. Nevertheless, he listened to this ser- 
mon, so plain and clear, suited to the capacity of ignorant 
Bhepherds and little children, and seemed as if he under* 
stood it all. If he did not then, he did afterward. 


48 


A Noble Life. 

When service was over, he sat watching the congrega- 
tion pass out, especially noticing a family of boys who 
occupied the adjoining pew. They had neither father 
nor mother with them, but an elder sister, as she appear- 
ed to be — a tall girl of about fifteen. She marshaled 
them out before her, not allowing them once to turn, as 
many of the other people did, to look with curiosity at 
the poor little earl. But in quitting the kirk she stopped 
at the vestry door, apparently to say a word to the min- 
ister; after which Mr. Cardross came forward, his gown 
over his arm, and spoke to Mr. Menteith — 

“ Where is Lord Cairnforth ? I was so glad to see him 
here.” 

“ Thank you, Mr. Cardross,” replied a weak but cheer- 
ful voice from Malcolm’s shoulder, which so startled the 
good minister that he found not another word for a whole 
minute. At last he said, hesitating, 

“Helen has just been reminding me that the earl and 
countess used always to come and rest at the Manse be- 
tween sermons. Would Lord Cairnforth like to do the 
same? It is a good way to the Castle — or perhaps he is 
too fatigued for the afternoon service ?” 

“ Oh no, I should like it very much. And, nurse, I do 
so want to see Mr. Cardross’s children ; and Helen — who 
is Helen?” 

“ My daughter. Come here, Helen, and speak to the 
earl.” 

She came forward — the tall girl who had sat at the end 
of the pew, in charge of the six boys — came forward in 
her serious, gentle, motherly way — alas ! she was the only 
mother at the Manse now — and put out her hand, but in- 


49 


A Noble Life. 

stinctively drew it back again ; for oh ! what poor, help- 
less, unnatural-looking fingers were feebly advanced an 
inch or so to meet hers! They actually shocked her — 
gave her a sick sense of physical repulsion ; but she con- 
quered it. Then, by a sudden impulse of conscience, 
quite forgetting the rank of the earl, and only thinking 
of the poor, crippled, orphaned baby — for he seemed no 
more than a baby — Helen did what her warm, loving 
heart was in the habit of doing, as silent consolation for 
every thing, to her own tribe of u mitherless bairns” — 
she stooped forward and kissed him. 

The little earl was so astonished that he blushed up to 
the very brow. But from that minute he loved Helen 
Cardross, and never ceased loving her to the end of his 
days. 

She led the way to the Manse, which was so close be- 
hind the kirk that the back windows of it looked on the 
grave-yard. But in front there was a beautiful lawn and 
garden — the prettiest Manse garden that ever was seen. 
Helen stepped through it with her light, quick step, a 
child clinging to each hand, often turning round to speak 
to Malcolm or to the earl. He followed her with his eyes, 
and thought she was like a picture he had once seen of a 
guardian angel leading two children along, though there 
was not a bit of the angel about Helen Cardross — exter- 
nally at least, she being one of those large, rosy, round- 
faced, flaxen-haired Scotch girls who are far from pretty 
even in youth, and in middle age sometimes grow quite 
coarse and plain. She would not do so, and did not ; for 
any body so good, so sweet, so bright, must always carry 
about with her, even to old age, something which, if not 
4 


50 


A Noble Life . 

beauty’s self, is beauty’s atmosphere, and which often cre- 
ates, even around unlovely people, a light and glory as 
perfect as the atmosphere round the sun. 

She took her seat — her poor mother’s that used to be 
— at the head of the Manse table — which was a little qui- 
eter on Sundays than week-days, and especially this Sun- 
day, when the children were all awed and shy before 
their new visitor. Helen had previously taken them all 
aside, and explained to them that they were not to notice 
any thing in the earl that was different from other peo- 
ple — that he was a poor little crippled boy who had nei- 
ther father, mother, brother, nor sister; that they were 
to be very kind to him, but not to look at him much, and 
to make no remarks upon him on any account whatever. 

And so, even though he was placed on baby’s high 
chair, and fed by Malcolm almost as if he were a baby — 
he who, though no bigger than a baby, was in reality a 
boy often years old, whom papa talked to, and who talked 
with papa almost as cleverly as Helen herself — still the 
Manse children were so well behaved that nothing oc- 
curred to make any body uncomfortable. 

For the little earl, he seemed to enjoy himself amazing- 
ly. He sat in his high chair, and looked round the well- 
filled table with mingled curiosity and amusement; in- 
quired the children’s names, and was greatly interested 
in the dog, the cat, a rabbit, and two kittens, which after 
dinner they successively brought to amuse him. And 
then he invited them all to the Castle next day, and prom- 
ised to take them over his garden there. 

“ But how can you take us ?” said the youngest, in 
spite of Helen’s frown. “ We can run about, but you — ” 


51 


A Noble Life. 

“ I can’t run about, that is true ; but I have a little car- 
riage, and Malcolm draws it, or Malcolm carries me, and 
then I can see such a deal. I used to see nothing — only 
lie on a sofa all day, and have doctors coming about me 
and hurting me,” added the poor little earl, growing con- 
fidential, as one by one the boys slipped away, leaving 
him alone with Helen. 

“ Did they hurt you very much ?” asked she. 

“ Oh, terribly ; but I never told. You see, there was 
no use in telling ; it could not be helped, and it would 
only have made nurse cry — she always cries over me. I 
think that is why I like Malcolm ; he always helps me, 
and he never cries. And I am getting a great boy now ; 
I was ten years old last week.” 

Ten years old, though he seemed scarcely more than 
five, except by the old look of his face. But Helen took 
no notice, only saying “ that she hoped the doctors did 
not hurt him now.” 

“ No, that is all over. Dr. Hamilton says I am to be 
left to Nature, whatever that is ; I overheard him say it 
one day. And I begged of Mr. Menteith not to shut me 
up any longer, or take me out only in my carriage, but 
to let me go about as I like, Malcolm carrying me — isn’t 
he a big, strong fellow? Yon can’t think how nice it is 
to be carried about, and see every thing — oh, it makes 
me so happy !” 

The tone in which he said “ so happy” made the tears 
start to Helen’s eyes. She turned away to the window, 
where she saw her own big brothers, homely - featured 
and coarsely clad, but full of health, and strength, and ac- 
tivity, and then looked at this poor boy, who had every 


52 


A Noble Life. 


* 


thing that fortune could give, and yet — nothing ! She 
thought how they grumbled and squabbled, those rough 
lads of hers ; how she herself often felt the burden of the 
large narrow household more than she could bear, and 
lost heart and temper ; then she thought of him — poor, 
helpless soul ! — you could hardly say body — who could 
neither move hand nor foot — who was dependent as an 
infant on the kindness or compassion of those about him. 
Yet he talked of being “ so happy !” And there entered 
into Helen Cardross’s good heart toward the Earl of 
Cairnforth a deep tenderness, which from that hour noth- 
ing ever altered or estranged. 

It was not pity — something far deeper. Had he been 
fretful, fractious, disagreeable, she would still have been 
very sorry for him and very kind to him. But now, to 
see him as he was — cheerful, patient; so ready with his 
interest in others, so utterly without envyings and com- 
plainings regarding himself — changed what would other- 
wise have been mere compassion into actual reverence. 
As she sat beside him in his little chair, not looking at 
him much, for she still found it difficult to overcome the 
painful impression of the sight of that crippled and de- 
formed body, she felt a choking in her throat and a dim- 
ness in her eyes — a longing to do any thing in the wide 
world that would help or comfort the poor little earl. 

“Do you learn any lessons?” asked she, thinking he 
seemed to enjoy talking with her. “ I thought at dinner 
to-day that you seemed to know a great many things.” 

“ Did I ? That is very odd, for I fancied I knew noth- 
ing ; and I want to learn every thing — if Mr. Cardross 
will teach me. I should like to sit and read all day long. 


53 


A Noble Life. 

I could do it by myself, now that I have found out a way 
of holding the book and turning over the leaves without 
nurse’s helping me. Malcolm invented it — Malcolm is 
so clever and so kind.” 

“ Is Malcolm always with you ?” 

“ Oh yes ; how could I do without Malcolm ? And 
you are quite sure your father will teach me every thing 
I want to learn?” pursued the little earl, very eagerly. 

Helen was quite sure. 

“ And there is another thing. Mr. Menteith says I must 
try, if possible, to learn to write — if only so as to be able 
to sign my name. In eleven more years, when I am a 
man, he says I shall often be required to sign my name. 
Do you think I could manage to learn ?” 

Helen looked at the poor, twisted, powerless fingers, 
and doubted it very much. Still she said cheerfully, “ It 
would anyhow be a good thing to try.” 

“So it would — and I’ll try. I’ll begin to-morrow. 
Will you” — with a pathetic entreaty in the soft eyes — 
“ it might be too much trouble for Mr. Cardross — but will 
you teach me?” 

“Yes, my dear!” said Helen, warmly, “that I will.” 

“ Thank you. And” — still hesitating — “ please would 
you always call me 1 my dear’ instead of 1 my lord and 
might I call you Helen?” 

So they “ made a paction ’twixt them twa” — the poor 
little helpless, crippled boy, and the bright, active, ener- 
getic girl — the earl’s son and the minister’s daughter — 
one of those pactions which grow out of an inner simili- 
tude which counteracts all outward dissimilarity; and 
they never broke it while they lived. 


64 


A Noble Life. 

“ Has my lamb enjoyed himself?” inquired Mrs. Camp- 
bell, anxiously and affectionately, when she reappeared 
from the Manse kitchen. Then, with a sudden resump- 
tion of dignity, “ i beg your pardon, Miss Cardross, but 
this is the first time his lordship has ever been out to 
dinner.” 

“ Oh, nurse, how I wish I might go out to dinner ev- 
ery Sunday ! I am sure this has been the happiest day 
of all my life.” 


Copter fjjt /mtrfji 


If the “ happiest day in all his life” had been the first 
day the earl spent at Cairnforth Manse, which very like- 
ly it was, he took the first possible opportunity of renew- 
ing his happiness. 

Early on Monday forenoon, while Helen’s ever-active 
hands were still busy clearing away the six empty por- 
ridge plates, and the one tea-cup which had contained the 
beverage which the minister loved, but which was too 
dear a luxury for any but the father of the family, Mal- 
colm Campbell’s large shadow was seen darkening the 
window. 

“ There’s the earl !” cried Helen, whose quick eye had 
already caught sight of the white little face muffled up 
in Malcolm’s plaid, and the soft black curls resting on 
his shoulder, damp with rain, and blown about by the 
wind, for it was what they called at Loch Beg a “coarse” 
day. 

“ My lord was awfu’ set upon coming,” said Malcolm, 
apologetically; “and when my lord taks a thing into 
his heid, he’ll aye do’t, ye ken.” 

“We are very glad to see the earl,” returned the min- 
ister, who nevertheless looked a little perplexed; for, 
while finishing his breakfast, he had been confiding to 
Helen how very nervous he felt about this morning’s 


58 


A Noble Life . 


duties at the Castle — how painful it would be to teach a 
child so afflicted, and how he wished he had thought 
twice before he undertook the charge. And Helen had 
been trying to encourage him by telling him all that had 
passed between herself and the boy — how intelligent he 
had seemed, and how eager to learn. Still, the very fact 
that they had been discussing him made Mr. Cardross 
feel slightly confused. Men shrink so much more than 
women from any physical suffering or deformity; be- 
sides, except those few moments in the church, this was 
really the first time he had beheld Lord Cairnforth ; for 
on Sundays it was the minister’s habit to pass the whole 
time between sermons in his study, and not join the fam- 
ily table until tea. 

<( We are very glad to see the earl at all times,” re- 
peated he, but hesitatingly, as if not sure that he was 
quite speaking the truth. 

“ Yes, very glad,” added Helen, hastily, fancying she 
could detect in the prematurely acute and sensitive face 
a consciousness that he was not altogether welcome. 
“My father was this minute preparing to start for the 
Castle.” 

“My lord aidna like to trouble the minister to be 
walking out this coarse day,” said Malcolm, with true 
Highland ingenuity of politeness. “His lordship thocht 
that instead o’ Mr. Cardross coming to him, he would 
just come to Mr. Cardross.” 

“ Ho, Malcolm,” interposed the little voice, “ it was not 
exactly that. I wished for my own sake to come to the 
Manse again, and to ask if I might come every day and 
take my lessons here — it’s so dreary in that big library. 


A Noble Life . 


59 


I’ll not be much trouble, indeed, sir,” he added, entreat- 
ingly ; “ Malcolm will carry me in and carry me out. I 
can sit on almost any sort of chair now; and with this 
wee bit of stick in my hand I can turn over the leaves 
of my books my very own self — I assure you I can.” 

The minister walked to the window. He literally 
could not speak for a minute, he felt so deeply moved, 
and in his secret heart so very much ashamed of himself. 

When he turned round Malcolm had placed the little 
figure in an arm-chair by the fire, and was busy unswath- 
ing the voluminous folds of the plaid in which it had 
been wrapped. Helen, after a glance or two, pretended 
to be equally busy over her daily duty — the common 
duty of Scotch housewives at that period — of washing 
up the delicate china with her own neat hands, and put- 
ting it safe away in the parlor press ; for, as before said, 
Mr. Cardross’s income was very small, and, like that of 
most country ministers, very uncertain, his stipend alter- 
ing year by year, according to the price of corn. They 
kept one u lassie” to help, but Helen herself had to do a 
great deal of the housework. She went on doing it now, 
as probably she would in any case, being at once too sim- 
ple and too proud to be ashamed of it ; still, she was glad 
to seem busy, lest the earl might have fancied she was 
watching him. 

Her feminine instinct had been right. Now for the 
first time taken out of his shut-up nursery life, where he 
himself had been the principal object — where he had no 
playfellows and no companions save those he had been 
used to from infancy — removed from this, and brought 
into ordinary family life, the poor child felt — he could 


60 


A Noble Life . 

not but feel — the sad, sad difference between himself and 
all the rest of the world. His color came and went — 
he looked anxiously, deprecatingly, at Mr. Cardross. 

“ I hope, sir, you are not displeased with me for com- 
ing to-day. I shall not be very much trouble to you — 
at least I will try to be as little trouble as I can.” 

“ My boy,” said the minister, crossing over to him and 
laying his hand upon his head, “you will not be the 
least trouble; and if you were ever so much, I would 
cheerfully undertake it for the sake of your father and 
mother, and — ” he added, more to himself than aloud— 
“ for your own.” 

That was true. Nature, which is never without her 
compensations, had put into this child of ten years old a 
strange charm, an inexpressible loveableness — that love- 
ableness which springs from lovingness, though every 
loving nature is not fortunate enough to possess it. But 
the earl’s did ; and as he looked up into the minister’s 
face, with that touchingly grateful expression he had, 
the good man felt his heart melt and brim over at his 
eyes. 

“You don’t dislike me, then, because — because I am 
not like other boys ?” 

Mr. Cardross smiled, though his eyes were still dim, 
and his voice not clear ; and with that smile vanished for- 
ever the slight repulsion he had felt to the poor child. 
He took him permanently into his good heart, and from 
his manner the earl at once knew that it was so. 

He brightened up immediately. 

“ Now, Malcolm, carry me in ; I’m quite ready,” said 
he, in a tone which indicated that quality, discernible 


61 


A Noble Life. 

even at so early an age — a “ will of his own.” To see 
the way he ordered Malcolm about — the big fellow obey- 
ing him, with something beyond even the large limits of 
that feudal respect which his forbears had paid to the 
earl’s forbears for many a generation, was a sight at once 
touching and hopeful. 

“ There — put me into the child’s chair I had at dinner 
yesterday. Now fetch me a pillow — or rather roll up 
your plaid into one — don’t trouble Miss Cardross. That 
will make me quite comfortable. Pull out my books 
from your pouch, Malcolm, and spread them out on the 
table, and then go and have a crack with your old friends 
at the clachan ; you can come for me in two hours.” 

It was strange to see the little figure giving its orders, 
and settling itself with the preciseness of an old man at 
the study-table ; but still this removed somewhat of the 
painful shyness and uncomfortableness from every body, 
and especially from Mr. Cardross. He sat himself down 
in his familiar arm-chair, and looked across the table at 
his poor little pupil, who seemed at once so helpless and 
so strong. 

Lessons begun. The child was exceedingly intelligent 
— precociously, nay, preternaturally so, it appeared to Mr. 
Cardross, who, like many another learned father, had been 
blessed with rather stupid boys, who liked any thing bet- 
ter than study, and whom he had with great labor drag- 
ged through a course of ordinary English, Latin, and 
even a fragment of Greek. But this boy seemed all 
brains. His cheeks flushed, his eyes glittered, he learned 
as if he actually enjoyed learning. True, as Mr. Cardross 
soon discovered, his acquirements were not at all in the 


62 


A Noble Life. 

regular routine of education ; he was greatly at fault in 
many simple things; but the amount of heterogeneous 
and out-of-the-way knowledge which he had gathered up, 
from all available sources, was quite marvelous. And, 
above all, to teach a boy unto whom learning seemed a 
pleasure rather than a torment, a favor instead of a pun- 
ishment, was such an exceeding and novel delight to the 
good minister, that soon he forgot the crippled figure — 
the helpless hands that sometimes with fingers, sometimes 
even with teeth, painfully guided the ingeniously cut 
forked stick, and the thin face that only too often turned 
white and weary, but quickly looked up, as if struggling 
against weakness, and concentrating all attention on the 
work that was to be done. 

At twelve o’clock Helen came in with her father’s 
lunch — a foaming glass of new milk, warm from the cow. 
The little earl looked at it with eager eyes. 

“ Will I bring you one too?” said Helen. 

“ Oh — thank you ; I am so thirsty. And, please, would 
you move me a little — -just a very little; I don’t often 
sit so long in one position. It won’t trouble you very 
much, will it?” 

“Not at all, if you will only show me how,” stam- 
mered Helen, turning hot and red. But, shaking off her 
hesitation, she lifted up the poor child tenderly and care- 
fully, shook his pillows and “ sorted” him according to 
her own untranslatable Scotch word, then went quickly 
out of the room to compose herself, for she had done it 
all, trembling exceedingly the while. And yet, some* 
how, a feeling of great tenderness — tenderer than even 
she had felt successively toward her own baby brothers. 


A Noble Life . 


63 


had grown up in her heart toward him, taking away 
every possible feeling of repulsion on account of his de- 
formity. 

She brought back the glass of creamy milk and a bit 
of oatcake, and laid them beside the earl. He regarded 
&hem wistfully. 

“How nice the milk looks! I am so tired — and so 
thirsty. Please — would you give me some? Just hold 
the glass, that’s all, and I can manage.” 

Helen held it to his lips — the first time she ever did 
so, but not the last by many. Years and years from 
then, when she herself was quite an old woman, she re- 
membered giving him that drink of milk, and how, aft- 
erward, two large soft oyes were turned upon hers so 
lovingly, so gratefully, as if the poor cripple had drank 
in something besides milk — the sweet draught of human 
affection, not dried up even to such heavily afflicted ones 
as he. 

“Are lessons all done for to-day, papa?” said she, no- 
ticing that, eager as it was, the little face looked very 
wan and wearied, but also noticing with delight that her 
father’s expression was brighter and more interested than 
it had been this long time. 

“Done, Helen? Well, if my pupil is tired, certain- 
ly.” 

“ But Pm not tired, sir.” 

Helen shook her motherly head : “ Quite enough for 
to-day. You may come back again to-morrow.” 

He did come back. Day after day, in fair weather or 
foul, big Malcolm was to be seen stepping with his free 
Highland step — Malcolm was a lissome, handsome young 


64 


A Noble Life . 


fellow — across the Manse garden, carrying that small^ 
frail burden, which all the inhabitants of the clachan 
had ceased to stare at, and to which they all raised their 
bonnets or touched their shaggy forelocks. “ It’s the wee 
earl, ye ken,” and one and all treated with the utmost 
respect the tiny figure wrapped in a plaid, so that noth* 
ing was visible except a small child’s face, which always 
smiled at sight of other children. 

It was surprising in how few days the clachan, and 
indeed the whole neighborhood, grew accustomed to the 
appearance of the earl and his sad story. Perhaps this 
was partly due to Helen and Mr. Cardross, who, seeing 
no longer any occasion for mystery, indeed regretting a 
little that any mystery had ever been made about the 
matter, took every opportunity of telling every body 
who inquired the whole facts of the case. 

These were few enough and simple enough, though 
very sad. The Earl — the last Earl of Cairnforth — was a 
hopeless cripple for life. All the consultations of all the 
doctors had resulted in that conclusion. It was very un- 
likely he would ever be better than he was now physic- 
ally, but mentally he was certainly “a’ richt” — or “ a’ 
there,” as the country-folk express it. There was, as 
Mr. Cardross carefully explained to every body, not the 
slightest ground for supposing him deficient in intellect; 
on the contrary, his intellect seemed almost painfully 
acute. The quickness with which he learned his lessons 
surpassed that of any boy of his age the minister had 
ever known; and he noticed every thing around him so 
closely, and made such intelligent remarks, that to talk 
With him was like talking with a grown man. Before 


65 


A Noble Life . 

the first week was over Mr. Cardross began actually to 
enjoy the child’s company, and to look forward to lesson 
hours as the pleasantest hours of his day ; for, since the 
Castle was closed, the minister’s lot had been the almost 
inevitable lot of a country clergyman, whose parish con 
tains many excellent people, who look up to him with 
the utmost reverence, and for whom he entertains the 
sincere respect that worth must always feel toward worth, 
but with whom he had very few intellectual sympathies. 
In truth, since Mrs. Cardross died the minister had shut 
himself up almost entirely, and had scarcely had a single 
interest out of his own study until the earl came home 
to Cairnforth. 

Now, after lessons, he would occasionally be persuaded 
to quit that beloved study, and take a walk along the 
loch side, or across the moor, to show his pupil the coun- 
try of which he, poor little fellow ! was owner and lord. 
He did it at first out of pure kindness, to save the earl 
from the well-meant intrusion of neighbors, but afterward 
from sheer pleasure in seeing the boy so happy. To 
him, mounted in Malcolm’s arms, and brought for the 
first time into contact with the outer world, every thing 
was a novelty and delight. And his quick perception 
let nothing escape him. He seemed to watch lovingly 
all nature, from the grand lights and shadows which 
moved over the mountains, to the little moorland flowers 
which he made Malcolm stop to gather. All living 
things too, from the young rabbit that scudded across 
their path, to the lark that rose singing up into the wide 
blue air — he saw and noticed every thing. 

But he never once said, what Helen, who, as often as 
5 


66 


A Noble Life. 

her house duties allowed, delighted to accompany them 
on these expeditions, was always expecting he would 
say, Why had God given these soulless creatures legs to 
run and wings to fly, strength, health, and activity to em 
joy existence, and denied all these things to him? De- 
nied them, not for a week, a month, a year, but for his 
whole lifetime — a lifetime so short at best; — “few of 
days, and full of trouble.” Why could He not have 
made it a little more happy ? 

Thousands have asked themselves, in some form or 
other, the same unanswered, unanswerable question. Hel- 
en had done so already, young as she was; when her 
mother died, and her father seemed slowly breaking 
down, and the whole world appeared to her full of dark- 
ness and woe. How then must it have appeared to this 
poor boy ? But, strange to say, that bitter doubt, which 
so often came into Helen’s heart, never fell from the 
child’s lips at all. Either he was still a mere child, ac- 
cepting life just as he saw it, and seeking no solution of 
its mysteries, or else, though so young, he was still strong 
enough to keep his doubts to himself, to bear his own 
burden, and trouble no one. 

Or else — and when she watched his Inexpressibly 
sweet face, which had the look you sometimes see in 
blind faces, of absolutely untroubled peace, Helen was 
forced to believe this — God, who had taken away from 
him so much, had given him something still more — a 
spiritual insight so deep and clear that he was happy in 
spite of his heavy misfortune. She never looked at him 
but she thought involuntarily of the text, out of the only 
book with which unlearned Helen was very familiar— 


A Noble Life. 


67 


that “in heaven their angels do always behold the face 
of my Father which is in heaven.” 

After a fortnight’s stay at the Castle Mr. Menteith felt 
convinced that his experiment had succeeded, and that, 
onerous as the duty of guardian was, he might be satisfied 
to leave his ward under the charge of Mr. Cardross. 

“ Only, if those Bruces should try to get at him, you 
must let me know at once. Remember, I trust you.” 

“Certainly you may. Has any thing been heard of 
them lately?” 

“Nothing much, beyond the continual applications for 
advances of the annual sum which the late earl gave 
them, and which I continue to pay, just to keep them 
out of the way.” 

“They are still abroad?” 

“I suppose so; but I hear very little about them. 
They were relations on the countess’s side, you know — it 
was she who brought the money. Poor little fellow, 
what an accumulation it will be by the time he is of age, 
and what small good it will do him !” 

And the honest man sighed as he looked from Mr. 
Cardross’s dining-room window across the Manse garden, 
where, under a shady tree, was placed the earl’s little 
wheel-chair, which was an occasional substitute for Mal- 
colm’s arms. In it he sat, with a book on his lap, and 
with that aspect of entire content which was so very 
touching. Helen sat beside him on the grass, sewing — 
she was always sewing ; and, indeed, she had need, if her 
needle were to keep pace with its requirements in that 
large family of boys. 

“ That’s a good girl of yours, and his lordship seems to 


68 


A Noble Life. 


have taken to her amazingly. I am very glad, for he 
had no feminine company at all except Mrs. Campbell, 
and, good as she is, she isn’t quite the thing — not exactly 
a lady, you see. Eh, Mr. Cardross — what a lady his 
mother was ! We’ll never again see the like of the poor 
countess, nor, in all human probability, will we ever again 
see another Countess of Cairnforth.” 

“No.” 

“Yet,” continued Mr. Menteith, after a long pause, 
“ Dr. Hamilton thinks he may live many years. Strange 
to say, his constitution is healthy and sound, and his 
sweet, placid nature — his mother’s own nature (isn’t he 
very like her sometimes?) — gives him so much advan- 
tage in struggling through every ailment If he can be 
made happy, as you and Helen will, 1 doubt not, be able 
to make him, and kept strictly to a wholesome, natural 
country life here, it is not impossible he may live to en- 
ter upon his property. And then — for the future, God 
knows !” 

“It is well for us,” replied the minister, gravely, “that 
He does know — every thing.” 

“ I suppose it is.” 

And then for another hour the two good men — one 
living in the world and the other out of it — both fathers 
of families, carrying their own burden of cares, and hav 
ing gone through their own personal sorrows each in his 
day, talked over, in the minutest degree, the present, and, 
so far as they could divine it, the future of this poor boy, 
who, through so strange a combination of circumstances, 
had been left entirely to their charge. 

“ It is a most responsible charge, Mr. Cardross, and 1 


A Noble Life. 


69 


feel almost selfish in shifting it so much from my own 
shoulders upon yours.” 

“ I am willing to undertake it. Perhaps it may do me 
good,” returned the minister, with a slight sigh. 

“ And you will give him the best education you can— 
your own, in short, which is more than sufficient for any 
Lord Cairnforth; certainly more than the last earl had, 
or his father either.” 

“ Possibly,” said Mr. Cardross, who remembered both 
* — stalwart, active, courtly lords of the soil, great at field- 
sports and festivities, but not over given to study. a No, 
the present earl does not take after his progenitors in 
any way. You should just see him, Mr. Menteith, over 
his Virgil; and I have promised to begin Homer with 
him to-morrow. It does one’s heart good to see a boy 
so fond of his books,” added the minister, warming up 
into an enthusiasm which delighted the other extremely. 

“ Yes, I think my plan was right,” said he, rubbing his 
hands. “It will work well on both sides. There could 
not be found any where a better tutor than yourself for 
the earl. He never can go much into the world; he 
may not even live to be of age ; still, as long as he does 
live, his life ought to be made as pleasant — I mean, as 
little painful to him as possible. And he ought to be 
fitted, in case he should live, for as many as he can fulfill 
of the duties of his position ; its enjoyments, alas ! he 
will never know.” 

“I am not so sure of that,” replied Mr. Cardross. “ He 
loves books; he may turn out a thoroughly educated 
and accomplished student — perhaps even a man of let- 
ters. To have a thirst for knowledge, and unlimited 


70 


A Noble Life. 


means to gratify it, is not such a bad thing. Why,” com 
tinued the minister, glancing round on his own poorly- 
furnished shelves, where every book was bought almost 
at the sacrifice of a meal, “ he will be rich enough to 
stock from end to end that wilderness of shelves in the 
half- finished Castle library. How pleasant that must 
be!” 

Mr. Menteith smiled as if he did not quite comprehend 
this sort of felicity. “But, in any case, Lord Cairnforth 
seems to have, what will be quite as useful to him as 
brains, a very kindly heart. He does not shut himself 
up m a morbid way, but takes an interest in all about 
him. Look at him, now, how heartily he is laughing at 
something your daughter has said. Really, those two 
seem quite happy.” 

“ Helen makes every body happy,” fondly said Helen’s 
father. 

“I believe so. I shall be sending down one of my big 
lads to look after her some day. I’ve eight of them, 
Mr. Cardross, all to be educated, settled, and wived. It’s 
a ‘sair fecht,’ I assure you.” 

“ I know it ; but still it has its compensations.” 

“ Ay, they’re all strong, likely, braw fellows, who can 
push their own way in the world and fend for themselves. 
Not like — ” he glanced over to the group on the grass, 
and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty trill of thor- 
oughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of 
both fathers. 

“ That child certainly has the sweetest nature — the 
most remarkable faculty for enjoying other people’s en- 
joyments, in which he himself can never share.” 


A Noble Life. 


71 


“ Yes, it was always so, from the time he was a mere 
infant. Dr. Hamilton often noticed it, and said it was a 
good omen.” 

“I believe so,” rejoined Mr. Cardross, earnestly. “I 
feel sure that if Lord Cairnforth lives, he will neither have 
a useless nor an unhappy life.” 

“ Let us hope not. And yet — poor little fellow!— to 
be the last Earl of Cairnforth, and to be — such as he is!” 

“ He is what God made him, what God willed him to 
be,” said the minister, solemnly. “We know not why it 
should be so ; we only know that it is, and we can not 
alter it. We can not remove from him his heavy cross, 
but I think we can help him to bear it.” 

“You are a good man, Mr. Cardross,” replied the Ed- 
inburg writer, huskily, as he rose from his seat, and de- 
clining another glass of the claret, of which, under some 
shallow pretext, he had sent a supply into the minister’s 
empty cellar, he crossed the grass-plot, and spent the rest 
of the evening beside his ward and Helen. 


CJrupttr tjre 







Days, months, and years slip smoothly by on the shores 
of Loch Beg. Even now, though the cruelly advancing 
finger of Civilization has touched it, dotted it with genteel 
villas on either side, plowed it with smoky steam-boats, 
and will shortly frighten the innocent fishes by dropping 
a marine telegraph wire across the mouth of the loch, it 
is a peaceful place still. But when the last Earl of Cairn- 
forth was a child it was all peace. In summer time a few 
stray tourists would wander past it, wondering at its beau- 
ty ; but in winter it had hardly any communication with 
the outer world. The Manse, the Castle, and the clachan, 
with a few outlying farm-houses, comprised the whole of 
Cairnforth ; and the little peninsula, surrounded on three 
sides by water, and on the fourth by hills, was sufficient- 
ly impregnable and isolated to cause existence to flow on 
there very quietly, in what townspeople call dullness, and 
country people repose. 

For, whatever repose there may be in country life — 
real country — there is certainly no monotony. The per- 
petual change of seasons, varying the aspect of the outside 
world every month, every week — nay, almost every day, 
is a continual interest to observant minds, and especially 
so to intelligent children, who are as yet lying on the 
breast of Mother Nature only, nor have begun to feel or 


76 A Noble Lips. 

understand the darker and sadder interests of human pas- 
sion and emotion. 

The little Earl of Cairnforth was one of these; and 
many a time, through all the summers of his life, he re- 
called tenderly that first summer at Cairnforth, when, no 
longer pent up between walls and roofs, or dragged about 
in carriages, he learned, by Malcolm’s aid and under Hel- 
en’s teaching, to chronicle time in different ways ; first by 
the hyacinths and primroses vanishing, and giving place 
to the wild roses — those exquisite deep-red roses which 
belong especially to this country-side ; then by the woods 
— his own woods — growing fragrant with innumerable 
honeysuckles; and lastly by the heather on the moor- 
land — Scotland’s own flower — which clothes entire hill- 
sides as with a garment of gorgeous purple, and fills the 
whole atmosphere wtih the scent of a spice-garden ; and 
when it faded into a soft brown, dying delicately, beauti- 
ful to the last, there appeared the brambles, trailing every 
where, with their pretty yellowing leaves and their deli- 
cious berries. How blithe, even like a mere “ callant,” 
big Malcolm was, when, leaving the earl on the sunny 
hill-side under Miss Cardross’s charge, he used to wander 
off, and come back with his hands all torn and scratched, 
to feed his young master with blackberries ! 

“ He is not unhappy — I am sure the child is not un- 
happy,” Helen often said to her father, when — as was his 
way — Mr. Cardross would get fits of uncertainty and 
downheartedness, and think he was killing his pupil with 
study, or wearying him, and risking his health by letting 
him do as much as his energetic mind, always dominant 
over the frail body, prompted him to do. “ Only let him 


A Noble Life . 


77 


love his life, and put as much in it as he can, be it long 
or short, and then it will never be a sad life or a life 
thrown away.” 

“Helen, you’re not clever, but you’re a wise little worm 
an, my dear,” the minister would say, patting the flaxen 
curls or the busy hands — large and brown, yet with a 
certain grace about them, too — helpful hands, made to 
hold children, or tend sick folk, or sustain the feeble steps 
of old age. She was “no bonnie” Helen Cardross; it 
was just a round, rosy, sonsie face, with no features in 
particular, but she was pleasant to look upon, and inex- 
pressibly pleasant to live with ; for it was such a whole- 
some nature, so entirely free from moods, or fancies, or 
crotchets of any kind — those sad vagaries of ill-health, ill- 
humor, and ill-conditionedness of every sort, which are 
sometimes only a misfortune, caused by an unhappy nat- 
ural temperament, but oftener arise from pure egotism, 
of which there was not an atom in Helen Cardross. Her 
life was like the life of a flower — as natural, unconscious, 
fresh, and sweet : she took in every influence about her, 
and gave out freely all she had to give ; desired no bet- 
ter things than she possessed, and where she was planted 
there she grew. 

It was not wonderful that the little earl loved her, 
and that under her sunshiny soul his life too blossomed 
out as it might never otherwise have done, but have 
drooped and faded, and gone back into the darkness, im- 
perfect and unfulfilled; for, though each human life is, 
in a sense, complete to itself, and must work itself out in- 
dependently, clinging to no other, still there is a great 
and beautiful mystery in the way one life seems to influ* 


78 


A Noble Life. 

encean other, sometimes for ill, but far, far oftener foi 
good. 

Lord Cairnforth was not much with the Cardross boys, 
He liked them, and evidently craved after their company, 
but they were very shy of him. Sometimes they let 
Malcolm bring him into their boat, and condescended to 
row him up and down the loch, a mode of locomotion in 
which he greatly delighted , for, at best, the shaking of 
the great lumbering coach was not easy to him, and he 
always begged to be carried m Malcolm’s arms till he 
found how pleasantly he could lie in the stern of the 
Manse boat, and float about on the smooth water, watch- 
ing the mountains and the shores. 

True, he could not stir an inch from where he was laid 
down, but he lay there so contentedly, enjoying every 
thing, and really looked, what he often said he was, “ as 
happy as a king.” 

And by degrees, with a little home persuasion from 
Helen, the boys got reconciled to his company — found, 
indeed, that he was not such bad company after all ; for 
often, when they were tired of pulling, and let the boat 
drift into some quiet little bay, or rock lazily in the mid- 
dle of the loch, the little earl would begin talking — tell* 
ing stories, which soon caught the attention of the minis 
ter’s boys. These were either fragments out of the books 
he had read, which seemed countless to the young Card- 
rosses, or, what they liked still better, tales “out of his 
own head and these tales were always the last that they 
would have expected from one like him — wild exploits ; 
wanderings over South American prairies, or shipwrecks 
on desert islands ; astonishing feats of riding, or fighting, 


79 


A Noble Life. 

or traveling by land and sea — every thing, in short, be* 
longing to that sort of active, energetic, adventurous life, 
of which the relator could never have had the least ex- 
perience, and never would have in this world. Perhaps 
for that very reason his fancy delighted therein the more. 

And his stories were enjoyed by others as much as by 
himself, which no doubt added to the charm of them. 
When winter came, and all the boating days were done, 
many a night, round the fire of the Manse parlor, or in 
the “ awful eerie” library at the Castle, the earl used to 
have a whole circle of young people, and some elder ones 
too, gathered round his wheel-chair, listening to his won- 
derful tales of adventure by flood and field. 

“ Why don’t you write them out properly?” the boys 
would ask sometimes, forgetting — what Helen would 
never have forgotten. But he only looked down on his 
poor helpless fingers and smiled. 

However, he had, with great difficulty and pains, man- 
aged to learn to write — that is, to sign his name, or in- 
dite any short letter to Mr. Menteith or others, which, as 
he grew older, sometimes became necessary. But writ- 
ing was always a great trouble to him ; and, fortunately, 
people were not expected to write much in those days. 
Had he been born a little later in his century, the Earl 
of Cairnforth might have brightened his sad life by put- 
ting his imagination forth in print, and becoming a great 
literary character ; as it was, he merely told his tales for 
his own delight and that of those about him, which pos- 
sibly was a better thing than fame. 

Then he made jokes, too. Sometimes, in his quiet, 
dry way, he said such droll things that the Cardross boys 


80 


A Noble Life . 

fell into shouts of laughter. He had the rare quality of 
seeing the comical side of things, without a particle of ill- 
nature being mixed up with his fun. His wit danced 
about as brilliantly and harmlessly as the Northern lights 
that flashed and flamed of winter nights over the mount- 
ains at the head of the loch; and the solid, somewhat 
heavy Manse boys, gradually growing up to men, often 
wondered why it was that, miserable as the earl’s life was, 
or seemed to them, they always felt merrier instead of 
sadder when they were in his company. 

But sometimes when with Helen alone, and more es- 
pecially as he grew to be a youth in his teens, and yet no 
bigger, no stronger, and scarcely less helpless than a child, 
the young earl would let fall a word or two which showed 
that he was fully and painfully aware of his own condi- 
tion, and of all that it entailed. It was evident that he 
had thought much and deeply of the future which lay be- 
fore him. If, as now appeared probable, he should live 
to man’s estate, his life must, at best, be one long endur- 
ance, rendered all the sharper and harder to bear because 
within that helpless body dwelt a soul, which was, more 
than that of most men, alive to every thing beautiful, 
noble, active, and good. 

However, though he occasionally betrayed these work- 
ings of his mind, it was only to Helen, and not to her 
very much, for he was exceedingly self-contained from 
his very childhood. He seemed to feel by instinct that 
to him had been allotted a special solitude of existence, 
into which, try as tenderly as they would, none could 
ever fully penetrate, and with which none could wholly 
sympathize. It was inevitable in the nature of things. 


A Noble Life . 


81 


He apparently accepted the fact as such, and did not at- 
tempt to break through it. He took the strongest in- 
terest in other people, and in every thing around him, 
but he did not seem to expect to have the like returned 
in any great degree. Perhaps it was one of those merci- 
ful compensations that what he could not have he was 
made strong enough to do without. 

So things went on, without any other variety than an 
occasional visit from Mr. Menteith or Dr. Hamilton, for 
seven years, during which the minister’s pupil had ac- 
quired every possible learning that his teacher could give, 
and was fast becoming less a scholar than an equal com- 
panion and friend — so familiar and dear, that Mr. Card- 
ross, like all who knew him, had long since almost for- 
gotten that the earl was — what he was. It seemed the 
most natural thing in the world that he should sit there 
in his little chair, doing nothing ; absolutely passive to 
all physical things; but interested in every thing and 
every body, and, whether at the Manse or the Castle, as 
completely one of the circle as if he took the most active 
part therein. Consulted by one, appealed to by another, 
joked by a third — he was ever ready with a joke — it was 
only when strangers happened to see him, and were start- 
led by the sight, that his own immediate friends recog- 
nized how different he was from other people. 

It was one day when he was about nineteen that Helen, 
coming in to see him with a message from her father, 
who wanted to speak to him about some parish matters, 
found Lord Cairnforth deeply meditating over a letter. 
He slipped it aside, however, and it was not until the 
whole parish question had been discussed and settled, as 
6 


82 


A Noble Life. 

somehow he and Helen very often did settle the whole 
affairs of the parish between them, that he brought it out 
again, fidgeting it out of his pocket with his poor fingers, 
which seemed a little more helpless than usual. 

“ Helen, I wish you would read that, and tell me what 
you think about it?” 

It was a letter somewhat painful to read, with the earl 
sitting by and watching her, but Helen had long learned 
never to shrink from these sort of things. He felt them 
far less if every body else faced them as boldly as he had 
himself always done. 

The letter was from Dr. Hamilton, written after his re- 
turn from a three days’ visit at Cairnforth Castle. It ex- 
plained, after a long apologetic preamble, the burden of 
which was that the earl was now old enough and thought- 
ful enough to be the best person to speak to on such a 
difficult subject, that there had been a certain skillful 
mechanician lately in Edinburg who declared he would 
invent some support by which Lord Cairnforth could be 
made, not indeed to walk — that was impossible — but to 
be by many degrees more active than now. But it would 
be necessary for him to go to London, and there submit 
to a great amount of trouble and inconvenience — possibly 
some pain. 

“ I tell you this last, my dear lord,” continued the good 
doctor, “ because I ought not to deceive you ; and be- 
cause, so far as I have seen, you are a courageous boy— 
nay, almost a man — or will be soon. I must forewarn 
you also that the experiment is only an experiment — * 
that it may fail ; but even in that case you would be only 
where you were before — no better, no worse, except fot 
the temporary annoyance and suffering.” 


A Noble Life. 


83 


“And if it succeeded?” said Helen, almost in a whis- 
per, as she returned the letter. 

The earl smiled — a bright, vague, but hopeful smile — 
“ I might be a little more able to do things — to live my 
Kfe with a little less trouble to myself, and possibly to 
other people. Well, Helen? You don’t speak, but I 
think your eyes say ‘ Try !’ ” 

“Yes, my dear.” She sometimes, though not often 
now, lest it might vex him by making him still so much 
of a child, called him “ my dear.” 

This ended the conversation, which Helen did not 
communicate to any body, nor referred to again with 
Lord Cairnforth, though she pondered over it and him 
continually. 

A week after this, Mr. Menteith unexpectedly appear- 
ed at the Castle, and after a long consultation with Mr. 
Cardross, it was agreed that what seemed the evident 
wish of the earl should be accomplished if possible ; that 
he, Malcolm, Mrs. Campbell, and Mr. Menteith should 
start for London immediately. 

Such a journey was then a very different thing from 
what it is now, and to so helpless a traveler as Lord 
Cairnforth its difficulties were doubled. He had to post 
the whole distance in his own carriage, which was fitted 
up so as to be as easy as possible in locomotion, besides 
being so arranged that he could sleep in it if absolutely 
necessary, for ordinary beds and ordinary chairs were 
sometimes very painful to him. Had he been born poor, 
in all probability he would long ago have died — of sheer 
suffering. 

Fortunately it was summer time. He staid at Cairn« 


84 


A Noble Life. 


forth till after his birthday, “for I may never see am 
other,” said he, with that gentle smile which seemed to 
imply that he would be neither glad nor sorry, and then 
he started. He was quite cheerful himself, but Mr. Men- 
teith and Mrs. Campbell looked very anxious. Malcolm 
was full of superstitious forebodings, and Helen Cardross 
and her father, when they bade him good-by, and watch- 
ed the carriage drive slowly from the Castle doors, felt as 
sad as if they were parting from him, not for London, but 
for the other world. 

Not until he was gone did they recognize how much 
they missed him : in the Manse parlor, where “the earl’s 
chair” took its regular place — in the pretty Manse gar- 
den, where its wheels had made in the gravel walks deep 
marks which Helen could not bear to have erased — in 
his pew at the kirk, where the minister had learned to 
look Sunday after Sunday for that earnest, listening face. 
Mr. Cardross, too, found it dull no longer to have his 
walk up to the Castle, and his hour or two’s rest in the 
yet unfinished library, which he and Lord Cairnforth had 
already begun to consult about, and where the earl was 
always to be found, sitting at his little table with his 
books about him, and Malcolm lurking within call, or 
else placed contentedly by the French window, looking 
out upon that blaze of beauty into which the countess’s 
flower-garden had grown. How little they had thought 
— the young father and mother, cut off in the midst of 
their plans, that their poor child would one day so keen- 
ly enjoy them all, and have such sore need for these or 
any other simple and innocent enjoyments. 

“Papa, how we do miss him!” said Helen one day as 


A Noble Life . 


85 


she walked with her father through the Cairnforth woods. 
“ Who would have thought it when he first came here 
only a few years ago ?” 

“ Who would indeed?” said the minister, remembering 
a certain walk he had taken through these very paths 
nineteen years before, when he had wondered why Prov- 
idence had sent the poor babe into the world at all, and 
thought how far, far happier it would have been lying 
dead on its dead mother’s bosom — that beautiful young 
mother, whose placid face upon the white satin pillows 
of her coffin Mr. Cardross yet vividly recalled ; for he 
saw it often reflected in the living face of the son, whom, 
happily, she had died without beholding. 

“That was a wise saying of King David’s, 4 Let me fall 
into the hands of the Lord, and not into the hands of 
men,’ ” mused Mr. Cardross, who had just been hearing 
from Mr. Menteith a long story of his perplexities with 
“ those Bruces,” and had also had lately a few domestic 
dissensions in his own parish, which did quarrel among 
itself occasionally, and always brought its quarrels to be 
settled by the minister. “ It is a strange thing, Helen, 
my dear, what wonderful peace there often is in great 
misfortunes. They are quite different from the petty 
miseries which people make for themselves.” 

“ I suppose so. But do you think, papa, that any good 
will come out of this London journey ?” 

“I can not tell; still, it was right to try. You your- 
self said it was right to try.” 

“Yes;” and then, seeing it was done now, the practi- 
cal, brave Helen stilled her uncertainties and let the mat- 
ter rest. 


86 


A Noble Life . 


No one was surprised that weeks elapsed before there 
came any tidings of the travelers. Then Mr. Menteith 
wrote, announcing their safe arrival in London, which 
diffused great joy throughout the parish, for of course 
every body knew whither Lord Cairnforth had gone, 
and many knew the reason why. Scarcely a week 
passed that some of the far-distant tenantry even, who 
lived on the other side of the peninsula, did not cross the 
hills, walking many miles for no reason but to ask at the 
Manse what was the latest news of “ our earl.” 

But after the first letter there came no farther tidings, 
and indeed none were expected. Mr. Menteith had prob- 
ably returned to Edinburg, and in those days there was 
no penny post, and nobody indulged in unnecessary cor- 
respondence. Still, sometimes Helen thought, with a sore 
uneasiness, “If the earl had had good news to tell, he 
would have surely told it. He was always so glad to 
make any body happy .’ 7 

The long summer twilights were ended, and one or 
two equinoctial gales had whipped the waters of Loch 
Beg into wild “ white horses , 77 yet still Lord Cairnforth 
did not return. At last, one Monday night, when Helen 
and her father were returning from a three daj^s 7 absence 
at the “preachings” — that is, the half-yearly sacrament — 
in a neighboring parish, they saw, when they came to 
the ferry, the glimmer of lights from the Castle windows 
on the opposite shore of the loch. 

“I do believe Lord Cairnforth is come home!” 

“ Ou ay, Miss Helen , 77 said Duncan, the ferryman, “his 
lordship crossed wi’ me the day ; an 7 I’m thinking, min- 
ister,” added the old man, confidentially, “ that ye suld 


A Noble Life. 


87 


just gang up to the Castle an’ see him ; for it’s ma opin< 
ion that the earl’s come back as he gaed awa, nae bettei 
and nae waur.” 

“ What makes you think so ? Did he say any thing?” 

“ Ne’er a word but just ‘ How are ye the day, Duncan ?’ 
and he sat and glowered at the hills and the loch, and 
twa big draps rolled down his puir bit facie — it’s grown 
sae white and sae sma’, ye ken — and I said, ‘My lord, 
it’s grand to see your lordship back. Ye’ll no be gaun 
to London again, I hope?’ 1 Na, na,’ says he ; 1 na, Dun- 
can, I’m best at hame — best at hame !’ And when Mal- 
colm lifted him, he gied a bit skreigh, as if he’d hurted 
himsel — Minister, I wish I’d thae London doctors here 
by our loch side,” muttered Duncan between his teeth, 
and pulling away fiercely at his oar : but the minister 
said nothing. 

He and Helen went silently home, and finding no mes* 
sage, walked on as silently up to the Castle together 




Chapter tjie liitti. 


i 


Old Duncan’s penetration had been correct — the diffi- 
cult and painful London journey was all in vain. Lord 
Cairnforth had returned home neither better nor worse 
than he was before : the experiment had failed. 

Helen and her father guessed this from their first sight 
of him, though they had found him sitting as usual in 
his arm-chair at his favorite corner, and when they en- 
tered the library he had looked up with a smile — the 
same old smile, as natural as though he had never been 
away. 

“ Is that you, Mr. Cardross? Helen too ? How very 
kind of you to come and see me so soon !” 

But, in spite of his cheerful greeting, they detected at 
once the expression of suffering in the poor face — “sae 
white and sae sma’,” as Duncan had said ; pale beyond 
its ordinary pallor, and shrunken and withered like an 
old man’s ; the more so, perhaps, as the masculine down 
had grown upon cheek and chin, and there was a ma- 
tured manliness of expression in the whole countenance, 
which formed a strange contrast to the still puny and 
childish frame — alas ! not a whit less helpless or less dis- 
torted than before. Yes, the experiment had failed. 

They were so sure of this, Mr. Cardross and his daugh- 
ter, that neither put to him a single question on the sub- 


92 


A Noble Life . 


ject, bat instinctively passed it over, and kept the con* 
versation to all sorts of commonplace topics: the journey 
— the wonders of London — and the small events which 
had happened in quiet Cairnforth during the three 
months that the earl had been away. 

Lord Cairnforth was the first to end their difficulty 
and hesitation by openly referring to that which neither 
of his friends could bear to speak of. 

“ Yes,” he said, at last, with a faint, sad smile, “ I agree 
with old Duncan — I never mean to go to London any 
more. I shall stay for the rest of my days among my 
own people.” 

“ So much the better for them,” observed the minister, 
warmly. 

“Do you think that? Well, we shall see. I must 
try and make it so, as well as I can. I am but where I 
was before, as Dr. Hamilton said. Poor Dr. Hamilton ! 
he is so sorry.” 

Mr. Cardross did not ask about what, but turned to the 
table and began cutting open the leaves of a book. For 
Helen, she drew nearer to Lord Cairnforth’s chair, and 
laid over the poor, weak, wasted fingers her soft, warm 
hand. 

The tears sprang to the young earl’s eyes. “Don’t 
speak to me,” he whispered ; “ it is all over now ; but it 
was very hard for a time.” 

“ I know it.” 

“Yes — at least as much as you can know.” 

Helen was silent She recognized, as she had never 
recognized before, the awful individuality of suffering 
which it had pleased God to lay upon this one human 


98 


A Noble Life . 

being — suffering at which even the friends who loved 
him best could only stand aloof and gaze, without the 
possibility of alleviation. 

“ Ay,” he said, at last, “it is all over: I need try no 
more experiments. I shall just sit still and be content.” 

What was the minute history of the experiments he 
had tried, how much bodily pain they had cost him, and 
through how much mental pain he had struggled before 
he attained that “ content,” he did not explain even to 
Helen. He turned the conversation to the books which 
Mr. Cardross was cutting, and many other books, of which 
he had bought a whole cart-load for the minister’s library. 
Neither then, nor at any other time, did he ever refer, ex- 
cept in the most cursory way, to his journey to London. 

But Helen noticed that for a long while — weeks, nay, 
months, he seemed to avoid more than ever any conver- 
sation about himself. He was slightly irritable and un- 
certain of mood, and disposed to shut himself up in the 
Castle, reading, or seeming to read, from morning till 
night. It was not till a passing illness of the minister’s 
in some degree forced him that he reappeared at the 
Manse, and fell into his old ways of coming and going, 
resuming his studies with Mr. Cardross, and his walks 
with Helen — or rather drives, for he had ceased to be 
carried in Malcolm’s arms. 

“ I am a man now, or ought to be,” he said once, as a 
reason for this, after which no one made any remarks on 
the subject. Malcolm still retained his place as the earl’s 
close attendant — as faithful as his shadow, almost as silent 

But the next year or so made a considerable alteration 
m Lord Cairnforth. Not in growth — the little figure never 


94 


A Noble Life . 

grew any bigger than that of a boy of ten or twelve ; but 
the childish softness passed from the face ; it sharpened, 
and hardened, and became , that of a young man. The 
features developed ; and a short black beard, soft and 
curly, for it had never known the razor, added character 
to what, in ordinary men, would have been considered a 
very handsome face. It had none of the painful expres- 
sion so often seen in deformed persons, but more resem- 
bled those sweet Italian heads of youthful saints — Saint 
Sebastian’s, for instance — which the old masters were so 
fond of painting; and though there was a certain melan- 
choly about it when in repose, during conversation it 
brightened up, and was the cheerfullest, most sunshiny 
face imaginable. 

That is, it ultimately became so ; but for a long time 
after the journey to London a shadow hung over it, which 
rarely quite passed away except in Helen’s company. 
Nobody could be dreary for long beside Helen Cardross ; 
and either through her companionship, or his own inher- 
ent strength of will, or both combined, the earl gradually 
recovered from the bitterness of lost hopes, whatsoever 
they had been, and became once more his own natural 
self, perhaps even more cheerful, since it was now not so 
much the gayety of a boy as the composed, equable se- 
renity of a thoughtful man. 

His education might be considered complete : it had 
advanced to the utmost limit to which Mr. Cardross could 
carry it ; but the pupil insisted on retaining, nominally 
and pecuniarily, his position at the Manse. 

Or else the two would spend hours — nay, days, shut 
up together in the Castle library, the beautiful octagon 


A Noble Life. 


95 


room, with its painted ceiling, and its eight walls lined 
from floor to roof with empty shelves, to plan the filling 
of which was the delight of the minister’s life, since, but 
for his poor parish and his large family, Mr. Cardross 
would have been a thorough bibliomaniac. Now, in a 
vicarious manner, the hobby of his youth reappeared, and 
at every cargo of books that arrived at the Castle his old 
eyes brightened — for he was growing to look really an 
old man now — and he would plunge among them with 
an ardor that sometimes made both the earl and Helen 
smile. But Helen’s eyes were dim too, for she saw 
through all the tender cunning, and often watched Lord 
Cairnforth as he sat contentedly in his little chair, in the 
midst of a pile of books, examining, directing, and sym- 
pathizing, though doing nothing. Alas ! nothing could 
he do. But it was one of the secrets which made these 
three lives so peaceful, that each could throw itself out 
of itself into that of another, and take thence, secondarily, 
the sunshine that was denied to its own. 

Beyond the family at the Manse the earl had no ac- 
quaintance whatsoever, and seemed to desire none. His 
rank lifted him above the small proprietors who lived 
within visitable distance of the Castle: they never at- 
tempted to associate with him. Sometimes a stray caller 
appeared, prompted by curiosity, which Mrs. Campbell 
generally found ingenious reasons for leaving ungratified, 
and Lord Cairnforth’s excessive shyness and dislike to 
appear before strangers did the rest. It is astonishing 
how little the world cares to cultivate those out of whom 
it can get nothing; and the small establishment at Cairn- 
forth Castle, with its almost invisible head, soon ceased 


96 


A Noble Life. 


to be an object of interest to any body — at least to any 
body in that sphere of life where the earl would other- 
wise have moved. 

Among his own tenantry, the small farmers along the 
shores of the two lochs which bounded the peninsula, his 
long minority and mysterious affliction made him person- 
ally almost unknown. They used to come twice a year, 
at Whitsunday and Martinmas, to pay their rents to Mr. 
Menteith ; to inquire for my lord’s health, and to drink 
it in abundance of whisky; but the earl himself they 
never saw, and their feelings toward him were a mixture 
of reverence and awe. 

It was different with the earl’s immediate neighbors, 
the humble inhabitants of the clachan. These, during 
the last nine years, had gradually grown familiar, first 
with the little childish form, carried about tenderly in 
Malcolm’s arms, and then with the muffled figure, scarce- 
ly less of a child to look at, which Malcolm, and some- 
times Miss Cardross, drove about in a pony-chaise. At 
the kirk especially, though he was always carefully con- 
veyed in first, and borne out last of all the congregation, 
his face — his sweet, kind, beautiful face was known to 
them all, and the children were always taught to doff 
their bonnets or pull their forelocks to the earl. 

Beyond that, nobody knew any thing about him. His 
large property, accumulating every year, was entirely un- 
der the management of Mr, Menteith ; he himself took 
no interest in it ; and the way by which the former heirs 
of Cairnforth had used to make themselves popular from 
boyhood, by going among the tenantry, hunting, shoot- 
ing, fishing, and boating, was impossible to this earl. His 


A Noble Life. 


97 


distant dependents hardly remembered his existence, and 
he took no heed of theirs, until a few months before he 
came of age, when one of these slight chances which oft- 
en determine so much changed the current of affairs. 

It was just before the “ term.” Mr. Menteith had been 
expected all day, but had not arrived, and the earl had 
taken a long drive with Helen and her father through 
the Cairnforth woods, where the wild daffodils were be- 
ginning to succeed the fading snowdrops, and the mavises 
had been heard to sing those few rich notes which be- 
long especially to the twilights of early spring, an earn- 
est of all the richness, and glory, and delight of the year. 
The little party seemed to feel it — that soft, dreamy sense 
of dawning spring, which stirs all the soul, especially in 
youth, with a vague looking forward to some pleasant- 
ness which never comes. They sat, silent and talking by 
turns, beside the not unwelcome fire, in a corner of the 
large library. 

“We shall miss Alick a good deal this spring,” said 
Helen, recurring to a subject of which the family heart 
was full, the departure of the eldest son to “begin the 
world” in Mr. Menteith’s office in Edinburg. He was 
not a very clever lad, but he was sensible and steady, and 
blessed with that practical mother- wit which is often bet- 
ter than brains. The minister, though he had been be- 
moaning his boy’s “ little Latin and less Greek,” and com- 
paring Alick’s learning very disadvantageously with that 
of the earl, to whom Mr. Cardross confided all his troub' 
les, nevertheless seemed both proud and hopeful of his 
eldest son, the heir to his honest name, which Alick 
would now carry out into a far wider world than that of 
7 


98 


A Noble Life . 


the poor minister of Cairnforth, and doubtless, in good 
time, transmit honorably to a third generation. 

“ Yes,” added the father, when innumerable castles in 
the air had been built and rebuilt for Alick’s future, “Til 
not deny that my lad is a good lad. He is the hope of 
the house, and he knows it. It’s little of worldly gear 
that he’ll get for many a day, and he tells me he will 
have to work from morning till night ; but he rather en- 
joys the prospect than not.” 

“No wonder. Work must be a happy thing,” said, 
with a sigh, the young Earl of Cairnforth. 

Helen’s heart smote her for having let the conversation 
drift into this direction, as it did occasionally, when, from 
their long familiarity with him, they forgot how he must 
feel about many things, natural enough to them, but to 
him, unto whom the outer world, with all its duties, en- 
ergies, enjoyments, could never be any thing but a name, 
full of sharpest pain. She said, after a few minutes 
watching of the grave, still face — not exactly sad, but 
only very still, very grave — 

“Just look at papa, how happy he is among those 
books you sent for! Your plan of his arranging the 
library is the delight of his life.” 

“ Is it ? I am so glad,” said the earl, brightening up 
at once. “ What a good thing I thought of it!” 

“You always do think of every thing that is good 
and kind,” said Helen, softly. 

“Thank you,” and the shadow passed away, as any 
trifling pleasure always had power to make it pass. 
Sometimes Helen speculated vaguely on what a grand 
sort of man the ean would have been had he been like 


99 


A Noble Life . 

other people — how cheerful, how active, how energetic 
and wise. But then one never knows how far circum- 
stances create and unfold character. We often learn as 
much by what is withheld as by what is enjoyed. 

“Helen,” he said, moving his chair a little nearer her 
— he had brought one good thing from London, a self- 
acting chair, in which he could wheel himself about easi- 
ly, and liked doing it — “I wonder whether your father 
would have taken as much pleasure in his books thirty 
years ago. Do you think one could fill up one’s whole 
life with reading and study ?” 

“I can not say; I’m not clever myself, you know.” 

“ Oh, but you are — with a sort of practical cleverness. 
And so is Alick, in his own way. How happy Alick 
must be, going out into the world, with plenty to do all 
day long! How bright he looked this morning!” 

“He sees only the sunny side of things: he is still no 
more than a boy.” 

“Not exactly: he is a year older than I am.” 

Helen hardly knew what to reply She guessed so 
well the current of the earl’s thoughts, which were often 
her own too, as she watched his absent or weary looks, 
though he tried hard to keep his attention to what Mr. 
Cardross was reading or discussing. But the distance 
between twenty and sixty — the life beginning and the 
life advancing toward its close — was frequently appar- 
ent; also between an active, original mind, requiring hu- 
manity for its study, and one whose whole bent was 
among the dry bones of ancient learning — the difference, 
in short, between learning and knowledge — the mere stu- 
dent and the man who only uses study as a means to the 


100 A Noble Life . 

perfecting of his whole nature, his complete existence as 
a human being. 

All this Helen felt with her quick, feminine instinct, 
faut she did not clearly understand it, and she could not 
reason about it at all. She only answered in a troubled 
sort of way that she thought every body, somehow or 
other, might in time find enough to do — to be happy in 
doing — and she was trying to put her meaning into 
more connected and intelligible form, when, greatly to 
her relief, Malcolm entered the library. 

Malcolm, being so necessary and close a personal at- 
tendant on the earl, always came and went about his 
master without any body’s noticing him ; but now Helen 
fancied he was making signals to her or to some one. 
Lord Cairnforth detected them. 

“Is any thing wrong, Malcolm? Speak out; don’t 
hide things from me. I am not a child now.” 

There was just the slightest touch of sharpness in the 
gentle voice, and Malcolm did speak out. 

“ I wadna be troubling ye, my lord, but it’s just an 
auld man, Dougal Mac Dougal, frae the head o’ Loch 
Mhor — a puir doited body, wha says he maun hae a bit 
word wi’ your lordship. But I tellt him ye couldna be 
fashed wi’ the likes o’ him.” 

“That was not civil or right, Malcolm — an old man, 
too. Where is he?” 

“Just by the door — eh — and he’s coming ben — the ill- 
mannered loon !” cried Malcolm, angrily, as he interrupt- 
ed the intruder — a tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a shep- 
herd’s plaid, with the bonnet set upon the grizzled head 
in that sturdy independence — nay, more than independ- 


A Noble Life . 


101 


ence — rudeness, rough and thorny as his own thistle, 
which is the characteristic of the Scotch peasant exter- 
nally, till you get below the surface to the warm, kindly 
heart. 

“I’m no ill-mannered, and I’ll just gang through the 
hale house till I find my lord,” said the old man, shaking 
off Malcolm with a strength that his seventy odd years 
seemed scarcely to have diminished. “ I’m wushing nae 
harm to ony o’ ye, but I maun get speech o’ my lord. 
He’s no a bairn ; he’ll be ane-and-twenty the thirtieth o’ 
June: I mind the day weel, for the wife was brought to 
bed o’ her last wean the same day as the countess, and 
our Dougal’s a braw callant the noo, ye ken. Gin the 
earl has ony wits ava, whilk folk thocht was aye doubt- 
fu’, he’ll hae gotten them by this time. I maun speak 
wi’ himsel’, unless, as they said, he’s no a’ there.” 

“ Haud your tongue, ye fule !” cried Malcolm, stopping 
him with a fierce whisper. “ Yon’s my lord !” 

The old shepherd started back, for at this moment a 
sudden blaze-up of the fire showed him, sitting in the 
corner, the diminutive figure, attired carefully after the 
then fashion of gentlemen’s dress, every thing rich and 
complete, even to the black silk stockings and shoes on 
the small, useless feet, and the white ruffles half hiding 
the twisted wrists and deformed hands. 

“ Yes, I am the Earl of Cairnforth. What did you 
want to say to me ?” 

He was so bewildered, the rough shepherd, who had 
spent all his life on the hill-sides, and never seen or imag- 
ined so sad a sight as this, that at first he could not find 
a word. Then he said, hanging back and speaking con- 


102 


A Noble Life. 


fusedly and humbly, “I ask your pardon, my lord — 1 
didna ken — I’ll no trouble ye the day.” 

“But you do not trouble me at all. Mr. Menteith is 
not here yet, and I know nothing about business ; still, 
if you wished to speak to me, do so ; I am Lord Cairn- 
forth.” 

“Are ye?” said the shepherd, evidently bewildered 
still, so that he forgot his natural awe for his feudal su- 
perior. “ Are ye the countess’s bairn, that’s just the age 
o’ our Dougal ? Dougal’s ane o’ the gamekeepers, ye ken 
— sic a braw fellow — sax feet three. Ye’ll hae seen him, 
maybe?” 

“ No, but I should like to see him. And yourself — are 
you a tenant of mine, and what did you want with me?” 

Encouraged by the kindly voice, and his own self-in- 
terest becoming prominent once more, old Dougal told 
his tale — not an uncommon one — of sheep lost on the 
hill-side, and one misfortune following another, until a 
large family, children and orphan grandchildren, were 
driven at last to want the “sup o’ parritch” for daily 
food, sinking to such depths of poverty as the earl in his 
secluded life had never even heard of. And yet the 
proud old fellow asked nothing except the remission of 
one year’s rent, after having paid rent honestly for half a 
lifetime. That stolid, silent endurance, which makes a 
Scotch beggar of any sort about the last thing you ever 
meet with in Scotland, supported him to the very end. 

The earl was deeply touched. As a matter of course, 
he promised all that was desired of him, and sent the old 
shepherd away happy ; but long after Dougal’s departure 
he sat thoughtful and grave. 


A Noble Life . 


103 


“Can such things be, Helen, and I never heard of them? 
Are some of my people — they are my people, since the 
land belongs to me — as terribly poor as that man ?” 

“ Ay, very many, though papa looks after them as 
much as he can. Dougal is out of his parish, or he would 
have known him. Papa knows every body, and takes 
care of every body, as far as possible.” 

“ So ought I — or I must do it when I am older,” said 
the earl, thoughtfully. 

“ There will be no difficulty about that when you come 
of age and enter on your property.” 

“Is it a very large property? for I never heard or in- 
quired.” 

“Very large.” 

“ Show me its boundary ; there is the map.” 

Helen took it down and drew with a pencil the limits 
of the Cairnforth estates. They extended along the 
whole peninsula, and far up into the main land. 

“There, Lord Cairnforth, every bit of this is yours.” 

l ' To do exactly what I like with ?” 

“ Certainly.” 

“Helen, it is an awfully serious thing.” 

Helen was silent. 

“How strange!” he continued, after a pause. “And 
this was really all mine from the very hour of my birth ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“And when I come of age I shall have to take my 
property into my own hands, and manage it just as I 
choose, or as I can ?” 

“ Of course you will; and I think you can do it, if you 
try.” 


104 


A Noble Life. 

For it was not the first time that Helen had pondered 
over these things, since, being neither learned nor poet- 
ical, worldly-minded nor selfish, in her silent hours her 
mind generally wandered to the practical concerns of 
other people, and especially of those she loved. 

“ 1 Try’ ought to be the motto of the Cardross arms — • 
of yours certainly,” said Lord Cairnforth, smiling. “I 
should like to assume it on mine, instead of my own 
4 Yirtute et fide,’ which is of little use to me. How can I 
— I — be brave or faithful?” 

“ You can be both — and you will,” said Helen, softly. 
Years from that day she remembered what she had said, 
and how true it was. 

A little while afterward, while the minister still re- 
mained buried in his beloved books, Lord Cairnforth re- 
curred again to Dougal Mac Dougal. 

“ The old fellow was right. If I am ever to have ‘ony 
wits ava,’ I ought to have them by this time. I am near- 
ly twenty-one. Any other young man would have been 
a man long ago. And I will be a man — why should I 
not? True manliness is not solely outside. I dare say 
you could find many a fool and a coward six feet high.” 

“ Yes,” answered Helen, all she could find to say. 

“ And if I have nothing else, I have brains — quite as 
good brains, I think, as my neighbors. They can not say 
of me now that I’m 1 no a’ there.’ Nay, Helen, don’t look 
so fierce; they meant me no ill; it was but natural. 
Yes, God has left me something to be thankful for.” 

The earl lifted his head — the only part of his frame 
which he could move freely, and his eyes flashed under 
his broad brows. Thoroughly manly brows they were, 


A Noble Life. 


105 


wherein any acute observer might trace that clear sound 
sense, active energy, and indomitable perseverance which 
make the real man, and lacking which the “brawest” 
young fellow alive is a mere body — an animal wanting 
the soul. 

“ I wonder how I should set about managing my prop- 
erty. The duty will not be as easy for me as for most 
people, you know,” added he, sadly; “still, if I had a 
secretary — a thorough man of business, to teach me all 
about business, and to be constantly at my side, perhaps 
I might be able to accomplish it. And I might drive 
about the country — driving is less painful to me now — 
and get acquainted with my people ; see what they want- 
ed, and how I could best help them. They would get 
used to me, too. I might turn out to be a very respecta- 
ble laird, and become interested in the improvement of 
my estates.” 

“ There is great opportunity for that, I know,” replied 
Helen. And then she told him of a conversation she 
had heard between her father and Mr. Menteith, when 
the latter had spoken of great changes impending over 
quiet Cairnforth : how a steamer was to begin plying up 
and down the loch — how there were continual applica- 
tions for land to be feued — and how all these improve- 
ments would of necessity require the owner of the soil to 
take many a step unknown to and undreamed of by his 
forefathers — to make roads, reclaim hill and moorland, 
build new farms, churches, and school-houses. 

“ In short, as Mr. Menteith said, the world is changing 
so fast that the present Earl of Cairnforth will have any 
thing but the easy life of his father and grandfather.” 


106 


A Noble Life . 


44 Did Mr. Menteith say that ?” cried the earl, eagerly. 

44 He did, indeed ; I heard him.” 

“And did he seem to think that 1 should be able for 
it?” 

44 1 can not tell,” answered truthful Helen. “ He said 
not a word one way or the other about your being capa- 
ble of doing the work ; he only said the work was to be 
done.” 

44 Then I will try and do it.” 

The earl said this quietly enough, but his eyes gleamed 
and his lips quivered. 

Helen laid her hand upon his, much moved. 44 I said 
you were brave — always; still, you must think twice 
about it, for it will be a very responsible duty — enough, 
Mr. Menteith told papa, to require a man’s whole ener- 
gies for the next twenty years.” 

“I wonder if I shall live so long. Well, I am gl&1. 
Helen. It will be something worth living for.” 


> 


Cijapftr ttje Imtify. 



Malcolm’s saying that “ if my lord taks a thing into 
his heid he’ll aye do’t, ye ken,” was as true now as when 
the earl was a little boy. 

Mr. Menteith hardly knew how the thing was accom- 
plished — indeed, he had rather opposed it, believing the 
mere physical impediments to his ward’s overlooking his 
own affairs were insurmountable ; but Lord Cairnforth 
contrived in the course of a day or two to initiate him- 
self very fairly in all the business attendant upon the 
“ term to find out the exact extent and divisions of his 
property, and to whom it was feued. And on term-day 
he proposed, though with an evident effort which touched 
the old lawyer deeply, to sit beside Mr. Menteith while 
the tenants were paying their rents, so as to become per. 
sonally known to each of them. 

Many of these, like Dougal Mac Dougal, were over 
come with surprise, nay, something more painful than 
surprise, at the sight of the small figure which was the 
last descendant of the noble Earls of Cairnforth, and with 
whom the stalwart father and the fair young mother, 
looking down from the pictured walls, contrasted so 
piteously ; but after the first shock was over they car- 
ried away only the remembrance of his sweet, grave face, 
*nd his intelligent and pertinent observations, indicating 


110 


A Noble Life. 

a shrewdness for which even Mr. Menteith was unpre- 
pared. When he owned this, after business was done, 
the young earl smiled, evidently much gratified. 

“Yes, I don’t think they can say of me that I’m ‘ no a' 
there! ” Also he that evening confessed to Helen that 
he found “business” nearly as interesting as Greek and 
Latin, perhaps even more so, for there was something 
human in it, something which drew one closer to one’s 
fellow-creatures, and benefited other people besides one’s 
self “ I think,” he added, “ I should rather enjoy being 
what is called £ a good man of business.’ ” 

He pleaded so hard for farther instruction in all pen 
taining to his estate that Mr. Menteith consented to spare 
two whole weeks out of his busy Edinburg life, during 
which Lord Cairnforth and he were shut up together for 
a great part of every day, investigating matters connect- 
ed with the property, and other things which hitherto in 
the young man’s education had been entirely neglected. 

“For,” said his guardian, sadly, “I own, I never 
thought of him as a young man — or as a man at all ; 
nevertheless, he is one, and will always be. That clear, 
cool head of his, just for brains, pure brains, is worth both 
his father’s and grandfather’s put together.” 

And when Helen repeated this saying to Lord Cairn- 
forth, he smiled his exceedingly bright smile, and was 
more than cheerful, joyous, for days after. 

On Mr. Menteith’s return home, he sent back to the 
Castle one of his old clerks, who had been acquainted 
with the Cairnforth affairs for nearly half a century ; he 
also was astonished at the capacity which the young earl 
showed. Of course, physically, he was entirely helpless; 


in 


A Noble Life . 

the little forked stick was still in continual requisition; 
nor could he write except with much difficulty ; but he 
had the faculty of arrangement and order, and the rare 
power — rarer than is supposed — of guiding and govern- 
ing, so that what he could not do himself he could direct 
others how to do, and thus attain his end so perfectly, 
that even those who knew him best were oftentimes ac- 
tually amazed at the result he effected. 

Then he enjoyed his work ; took such an interest in 
the plans for feuing land along the loch-side, and the sort 
of houses that was to be built upon each feu, the roads 
he would have to make, and especially in the grand 
wooden pier which, by Mr. Menteith’s advice, was short- 
ly to be erected in lieu of the little quay of stones at the 
ferry, which had hitherto served as Cairnforth’s chief link 
with the outside world. 

If Mr. Cardross and Helen grieved a little over this ad- 
vancing tide of civilization, which might soon sweep away 
many things old and dear from the shores of beautiful 
Loch Beg, they grew reconciled when they saw the light 
in the earl’s eyes, and heard him talk with an interest 
and enthusiasm quite new to him of what he meant to do 
when he came of age. Only in all his projects was one 
peculiarity rather uncommon in young heirs — the entire 
absence of any schemes for personal pleasure. Comforts 
he had, of course ; his faithful friends and servants took 
care that his condition should have every alleviation that 
wealth could furnish ; but of enjoyments, after the fash- 
ion of youth, he planned nothing ; for, indeed, what of 
them was left him to enjoy ? 

And so, faster than usual, being so well filled with oc* 


112 


A Noble Life. 

cupations, the weeks and months slipped by, until the 
important thirtieth of June, when Mr. Menteith’s term of 
guardianship would end, and a man’s free life and inde- 
pendent duties, so far as he could perform them, would 
legally begin for the Earl of Cairnforth. 

There had been great consultations on this topic all 
along the two lochs, and beyond them, for Dougal Mac 
Dougal had carried his story of the earl and his good- 
ness to the extreme verge of the Cairnforth territory. 
Throughout June the Manse was weekly haunted by ten- 
ants arriving from all quarters to consult the minister, the 
universal referee, as to how best they could celebrate the 
event, which, whenever it occurred, had for generations 
been kept gloriously in the little peninsula, though no 
case was known of any earl’s attaining his majority as 
being already Earl of Cairnforth. The Montgomeries 
were usually a long-lived race, and their heirs rarely 
came to their titles till middle-aged fathers of families. 

“ But we maun hae grand doings this time, ye ken,” 
said an old farmer to the minister, “for I doubt there’ll 
ne’er be anither Earl o’ Cairnforth.” 

Which fact every one seemed sorrowfully to recognize. 
It was not only probable, but right, that in this Lord 
Cairnforth — so terribly afflicted — the long line should 
end. 

As the day of the earl’s majority approached, the min- 
ister’s feelings were of such a mingled kind that he 
shrank from these demonstrations of joy, and rather re- 
pressed the warm loyalty which was springing up every 
where toward the young man. But after taking counsel 
with Helen, who saw into things a little deeper than he 


113 


A Noble Life. 

did, Mr. Cardross decided that it was better all should be 
done exactly as if the present lord were not different from 
his forefathers, and that he should be helped both to act 
and to feel as like other people as possible. 

Therefore, on a bright June morning, as bright as that 
of his sad birth-day and his mother’s death-day, twenty- 
one years before, the earl awoke to the sound of music 
playing — if the national pipes of the peninsula could be 
called music — underneath his window, and heard his 
good neighbors from the clachan, young and old, men, 
women, and bairns, uniting their voices in one hearty 
6hout, wishing “A lang life and a merry ane” to the Earl 
of Cairnforth. 

Whether or not the young man’s heart echoed the 
wish, who could tell ? It was among the solemn secrets 
which every human soul has to keep, and ever must keep, 
between itself and its Maker. 

Very soon the earl appeared out of doors, wheeling 
himself along the terrace in his little chair, answering 
smilingly the congratulations of every body, and evi- 
dently enjoying the pleasant morning, the sunshine, and 
the scent of the flowers in what was still called “the 
countess’s garden.” People noticed afterward how very 
like he looked that day to his beautiful mother; and many 
a mother out of the clachan, who remembered the lady’s 
face still, and how, during her few brief months of mar- 
ried happiness and hope, she used to stop her pretty 
pony-carriage to notice every poor woman’s baby she 
chanced to pass — many of these now regarded pitifully 
and tenderly her only son, the last heir of the last 
Countess of Cairnforth. 

8 


114 


A Noble Life . 

Yet he certainly enjoyed himself, there could be no 
doubt of it; and when, later in the day, he discovered a 
conspiracy between the Castle, the Manse, and the clach- 
an, which resulted in a grand feast on the lawn, he was 
highly delighted. 

“All this for me!” he cried, almost childish in his 
pleasure. “ How good every body is to me !” 

And he insisted on mixing with the little crowd, and 
seeing them sit down to their banquet, which they ate as 
if they had never eaten in their lives before, and drank 
— as Highlanders can drink, and Highlanders alone. 
But, before the whisky began to grow dangerous, the 
oldest man among the tenantry, who declared that he 
could remember three Earls of Cairn forth, proposed the 
health of this earl, which was received with acclamations 
long and loud, the pipers playing the family tune of 
“ Montgomerie’s Reel,” which was chiefly notable for hav- 
ing neither beginning, middle, nor ending. 

Lord Cairnforth bowed his head in acknowledgment. 

“ Ought not somebody to make a little speech of thanks 
to them?” whispered he to Helen Cardross, who stood 
close behind his chair. 

“You should; and I think you could,” was her an- 
swer. 

“ Yery well ; I will try.” 

And in his poor feeble voice, which trembled much, 
yet was distinct and clear, he said a few words, very short 
and simple, to the people near him. He thanked them 
for all this merry-making in his honor, and said “ he was 
exceedingly happy that day.” He told them he meant 
always to reside at Cairnforth, and to carry out all sorts 


115 


A Noble Life . 

of plans for the improvement of his estates, both for his 
tenants’ benefit and his own. That he hoped to be both a 
just and kind landlord, working with and for his tenant- 
ry to the utmost of his power. 

“That is,” he added, with a slight fall of the voice, 
“ to the utmost of those few powers which it has pleased 
Heaven to give me.” 

After this speech there was a full minute’s silence, ten- 
der, touching silence, and then arose a cheer, long and 
loud, such as had rarely echoed through the little penin- 
sula on the coming of age of any Lord Cairnforth. 

When the tenantry had gone away to light bonfires on 
the hill-side, and perform many other feats of jubilation, 
a little dinner-party assembled in the large dining-room, 
which had been so long disused, for the earl always pre- 
ferred the library, which was on a level with his bed- 
room, whence he could wheel himself in and out as he 
pleased. To-day the family table was outspread, and the 
family plate glittered, and the family portraits stared 
down from the wall as the last Earl of Cairnforth moved 
— or rather was moved — slowly down the long room. 
Malcolm was wheeling him to a side seat well sheltered 
and comfortable, when he said, 

“ Stop ! Remember I am twenty-one to-day. I think 
I ought to take my seat at the head of my own table.” 

Malcolm obeyed. And thus, for the first time since 
the late earl’s death, the place — the master’s place — was 
filled. 

“Mr. Cardross, will you say grace?” 

The minister tried once — twice — thrice; but his voice 
failed him. His tender heart,, which had lived through 


116 


A NcMe Life . 

so many losses, and this day saw all the past brought be- 
fore him vivid as yesterday, entirely broke down. There- 
upon the earl, from his seat at the head of his own table, 
repeated simply and naturally the few words which every 
head of a household — as priest in his own family — may 
veil say, “For these and all other mercies, Lord, make us 
thankful.” 

After that, Mr. Mentieth took snuff vehemently, and 
Mr. Cardross openly wiped his eyes. But Helen’s, if not 
quite dry, were very bright. Her woman’s heart, which 
looked beyond the pain of suffering into the beauty of 
suffering nobly endured, even as faith looks through 
“the grave and gate of death” into the glories of immor- 
tality — Helen’s heart was scarcely sad, but very glad and 
proud. 

The day after Lord Cairnforth’s coming of age Mr. 
Menteith formally resigned his trust. He had managed 
the property so successfully during the long minority 
that even he himself was surprised at the amount of 
money, both capital and income, which the earl was now 
master of, without restriction or reservation, and free from 
the control of any human being. 

“ Yes, my lord,” said he, when the young man seemed 
subdued and almost overcome by the extent of his own 
wealth, “it is really all your own. You may make ducks 
and drakes of it, as the saying goes, as soon as ever you 
please. You are accountable for it to no one — except 
One,” added the good, honest, religious man, now grow- 
ing an old man, and a little gentler, graver, as well as a 
little more demonstrative than he had been twenty years 
before. 


A Noble Life . 117 

u Except One. I know that ; I hope I shall never for- 
get it,” replied the Earl of Cairnforth. 

And then they proceeded to wind up their business 
affairs. 

“ How strange it is,” observed the earl, when they had 
nearly concluded, “how very strange that I should be 
here in the world, an isolated human being, with not a 
single blood relation, not a soul who has any real claim 
upon me!” 

“Certainly not — no claim whatsoever; and yet you 
are not quite without blood relations.” 

Lord Cairnforth looked surprised. “ I always under- 
stood that I had no near kindred.” 

“ Of near kindred you have none. But there are cer- 
tain far-away cousins, of whom, for many reasons, I never 
told you, and begged Mr. Cardross not to tell you either.” 

“I think I ought to have been told.” 

Mr. Mentieth explained his strong reasons for silence, 
such as the late lord’s unpleasant experience — and his 
own — of the Bruce family, and the necessity he saw for 
keeping his ward quite out of their association and their 
influence till his character was matured, and he was of an 
age to judge for himself, and act for himself, concerning 
them. All the more, because, remote as their kinship 
was, and difficult to be proved, still, if proved, they would 
be undoubtedly his next heirs. 

“My next heirs,” repeated the earl — “of course. I 
must have an heir. I wonder I never thought of that. 
If I died, there must be somebody to succeed me in the 
title and estates.” 

“ Not in the title,” said Mr. Menteith, hesitating, for he 


118 


A Noble Life. 


saw it was opening a subject most difficult and painful 
yet which must be opened some time or other, and the 
old man was too honest to shrink from so doing, if nee- 
essary. 

“ Why not the title?” 

“ It is entailed, and can be inherited in the direct male 
line only.” 

“That is, it descends from father to son?” 

“Exactly so.” 

“I see f ” said the young man, after a long pause. 
“Then I am the last Earl of Cairnforth.” 

There was no answer. Mr, Menteith could not for his 
life have given one ; besides, none seemed required. The 
earl said it as if merely stating a fact beyond which there 
is no appeal, and neither expecting nor desiring any ref- 
utation or contradiction. 

“Now,” Lord Cairnforth continued, suddenly changing 
the conversation, “ let us speak once more of the Bruces, 
who, you say, might any day succeed to my fortune, and 
would probably make a very bad use of it.” 

“I believe so; upon my conscience I do!” said Mr. 
Menteith, earnestly, “else I never should have felt justi- 
fied in keeping them out of your way as I have done.” 

“Who are they? I mean, of what does the family 
consist?” 

“ An old man — Colonel Bruce he calls himself, and is 
known as such in every disreputable gambling town on 
the Continent; a long tribe of girls, and one son, eldest 
or youngest, I forget which, who was sent to India 
through some influence I used for your father’s sake, but 
who may be dead by now for aught I know. Indeed, 


A Noble Life . 


119 


the utmost I have had to do with the family of late years 
has been paying the annuity granted them by the late 
earl, which I continued, not legally, but through charity, 
on trust that the present earl would never call me to ac- 
count for the same.” 

“ Most certainly I never shall.” 

“Then you will take my advice, and forgive my in- 
truding upon you a little more of it?” 

“Forgive? I am thankful, my good old friend, for 
every wise word you say to me.” 

Again the good lawyer hesitated : “ There is a subject, 
one exceedingly difficult to speak of, but it should be 
named, since you might not think of it yourself. Lord 
Cairnforth, the only way in which you can secure your 
property against these Bruces is by at once making your 
will.” 

“ Making my will !” replied the earl, looking as if the 
new responsibilities opening upon him were almost be- 
wildering. 

“Every man who has any thing to leave ought to 
make a will as soon as ever he comes of age. Vainly I 
urged this upon your father.” 

“ My poor father ! That he should die — so young and 
strong — and I should live — how strange it seems i You 
think, then — perhaps Dr. Hamilton also thinks— that my 
life is precarious ?” 

“I can not tell; my dear lord, how could any man 
possibly tell ?” 

“Well, it will not make me die one day sooner or later 
to have made my will : as you say, every man ought to 
do it; I ought especially, for my life is more doubtful 


120 


A Noble Life. 


than most people’s , and it is a solemn charge to possess 
so large a fortune as mine.’’ 

“ Yes. The good — or harm — that might be done with 
it is incalculable.” 

“I feel that — at least I am beginning to feel it.” 

And for a time the earl sat silent and thoughtful ; the 
old lawyer fussing about, putting papers and debris of all 
sorts into their right places, but feeling it awkward to re- 
sume the conversation. 

‘ Mr. Menteith, are you at liberty now? for I have 
quite made up my mind. This matter of the will shall 
be settled at once. It can be done ?” 

“ Certainly.” 

u Sit down, then, and I will dictate it. But first you 
must promise not to interfere with any disposition I may 
see fit to make of my property.” 

“ I should not have the slightest right to do so, Lord 
Cairnforth.” 

“My good old friend ! Well, now, how shall we be- 
gin?” 

£i I should recommend your first stating any legacies 
you may wish to leave to dependents — for instance, Mrs. 
Campbell, or Malcolm, and then bequeathing the whole 
bulk of your estates to some one person — some young 
person likely to outlive you, and upon whom you can de- 
pend to carry out all your plans and intentions, and 
make as good a use of your fortune as you would have 
done yourself. That is my principle as to choice of an 
heir. There are many instances in which blood is not 
thicker than water, and a friend by election is often wor- 
thier and dearer, besides being closer than any relative.” 


121 


A Noble Life. 

“ You are right.” 

“ Still, consanguinity must be considered a little. You 
might leave a certain sum to these Bruces — or if, on in- 
quiry, you found among them any child whom you ap- 
proved, you could adopt him as your heir, and he could 
take the name of Montgomerie.” 

“ No,” replied the earl, decisively, “ that name is end- 
ed. All I have to consider is my own people here — my 
tenants and servants. Whoever succeeds me ought to 
know them all, and be to them exactly what I have been, 
or rather what I hope to be.” 

“Mr. Cardross, for instance. Were you thinking of 
him as your heir ?” 

“No, not exactly,” replied Lord Cairnforth, slightly 
coloring. “He is a little too old. Besides, he is not 
quite the sort of person I should wish — too gentle and 
self-absorbed — too little practical.” 

“ One of his sons, perhaps ?” 

“ No, nor one of yours either ; to whom, by the way, 
you will please to set down a thousand pounds apiece. 
Nay, don’t look so horrified; it will not harm them. 
But personally I do not know them, nor they me. And 
my heir should be some one whom I thoroughly do 
know, thoroughly respect, thoroughly love. There is 
but one person in the world — one young person — who 
answers to all these requisites.” 

“ Who is that?” 

“ Helen Cardross.” 

Mr. Menteith was a good deal surprised. Though he 
had a warm corner in his heart for Helen, still, the idea 
of her as heiress to so large an estate was novel and 


122 


A Noble Life, 


startling. He did not consider himself justified in criti- 
cising the earl’s choice ; still, he thought it odd. True, 
Helen was a brave, sensible, self-dependent woman — not 
a girl any longer — and accustomed from the age of fifteen 
to guide a household, to be her father’s right hand, and 
her brothers’ help and counselor — one of those rare char- 
acters who, without being exactly masculine, are yet not 
too feebly feminine — in whom strength is never exagger- 
ated to boldness, nor gentleness deteriorated into weak- 
ness. She was firm, too; could form her own opinion 
and carry it out; though not accomplished, was fairly 
well educated ; possessed plenty of sound practical knowl- 
edge of men and things, and, above all, had habits of ex- 
treme order and regularity. People said, sometimes, that 
Miss Cardross ruled not only the Manse, but the whole 
parish ; however, if so, she did it in so sweet a way that 
nobody ever objected to her government. 

All these things Mr. Menteith ran over in his acute 
mind within the next few minutes, during which he did 
not commit himself to any remarks at all. At last he 
said, 

“I think, my lord, you are right. Helen’s no bonnie, 
but she is a rare creature, with the head of a man and 
the heart of a woman. She is worth all her brothers put 
together, and, under the circumstances, I believe you 
could not do better than make her your heiress.” 

“ I am glad you think so,” was the brief answer. 
Though, by the expression of the earl’s face, Mr. Men- 
teith clearly saw that, whether he had thought it or not, 
the result would have been just the same. He smiled a 
little to himself, but he did not dispute the matter. He 


123 


A Noble Life. 

knew that one of the best qualities the earl possessed — 
most blessed and useful to him, as it is to every human 
being — was the power of making up his own mind, and 
acting upon it with that quiet resolution which is quite 
distinct from obstinacy — obstinacy, usually the last 
strong-hold of cowards, and the blustering self-defense of 
fools. 

“ There is but one objection to your plan, Lord Cairn- 
forth. Miss Cardross is young — twenty -six, I think.” 

“ Twenty-five and a half.” 

“ She may not remain always Miss Cardross. She 
may marry ; and we can not tell what sort of man her 
husband may be, or how fit to be trusted with so large a 
property.” 

“So good a woman is not likely to choose a man 
unworthy of her,” said Lord Cairnforth, after a pause. 
“ Still, could not my fortune be settled upon herself as a 
life-rent, to descend intact to her heirs — that is, her chil- 
dren?” 

“My dear lord, how you must have thought over 
every thing !” 

“You forget, my friend, I have nothing to do but to 
sit thinking.” 

There was a sad intonation in the voice which affected 
Mr. Menteith deeply. He made no remark, but busied 
himself in drawing up the will, which Lord Cairnforth 
seemed nervously anxious should be completed that very 
day. 

“ For, suppose any thing should happen — if I died this 
night, for instance ! Ho, let what is done be done as soon 
as possible, and as privately.” 


124 A Noble Life. 

“ You wish, then, the matter to be kept private ?” asked 
Mr. Menteith. 

“Yes” 

So in the course of the next few hours the will was 
drawn up. It was somewhat voluminous with sundry 
small legacies, no one being forgotten whom the earl de- 
sired to benefit or thought needed his help ; but the bulk 
of his fortune he left unreservedly to Helen Cardross. 
Malcolm and another servant were called in as witnesses, 
and the earl saying to them with a cheerful smile “ that 
he was making his will, but did not mean to die a day 
the sooner,” signed it with that feeble, uncertain signa- 
ture which yet had cost him years of pains to acquire, 
and never might have been acquired at all but for his 
own perseverance and the unwearied patience of Helen 
Cardross. 

“ She taught me to write, you know,” said he to Mr. 
Menteith, as — the witnesses being gone — he, with a half- 
amused look, regarded his own autograph. 

“You have used the results of her teaching well on 
her behalf to-day. It is no trifle — a clear income of ten 
thousand a year; but she will make a good use of it.” 

“ I am sure of that. So, now, all is safe and right, and 
I may die as soon as God pleases.” 

He leaned his head back wearily, and his face was 
overspread by that melancholy shadow which it wore at 
times, showing how, at best, life was a heavy burden, as 
it could not but be — to him. 

“ Come, now,” said the earl, rousing himself, “ we have 
still a good many things to talk over, which I want to 
consult you about before you go,” whereupon the young 


125 


A Noble Life. 

man opened up such a number of schemes, chiefly for the 
benefit of his tenantry and the neighborhood, that Mr. 
Menteith was quite overwhelmed. 

“ Why, my lord, you are the most energetic Earl of 
Cairnforth that ever came to the title. It would take 
three lifetimes, instead of a single one, even if that 
reached threescore and ten, to carry out all you want 
to do.” 

“ Would it? Then let us hope it was not for nothing 
that those good folk yesterday made themselves hoarse 
with wishing me ‘a lang life and a merry ane.’ And 
when I die — but we’ll not enter upon that subject. My 
dear old friend, I hope for many and many a thirtieth 
of June I shall make you welcome to Cairnforth. And 
now let us take a quiet drive together, and fetch all the 
Manse people up to dinner at the Castle.” 


Cfmpter ijie figjjtji. 





The same evening the earl and his guests were sitting 
in the June twilight — the long, late northern twilight, 
which is nowhere more lovely than on the shores of Loch 
Beg. Malcolm had just come in with candles, as a gen- 
tle hint that it was time for his master, over whose per- 
sonal welfare he was sometimes a little too solicitous, to 
retire, when there happened what for the time being 
startled every body present 

Malcolm, going to the window, sprang suddenly back 
with a shout and a scream. 

“ I kent it weel. It was sure to be I Oh, my lord, my 
lord!” 

“What is the matter?” said Mr. Menteith, sharply. 
“ You’re gone daft, man ;” for the big Highlander was 
trembling like a child. 

“ Whisht ! dinna speak o’t. It was my lord’s wraith, 
ye ken. It just keekit in and slippit awa.” 

“ Folly ! I saw nothing.” 

“ But I think I did,” said Lord Cairnforth. 

“Hear him ! Ay, he saw ’t his ain sel. Then it maun 
be true. Oh my dear lord !” 

Poor Malcolm fell on his knees by the earl’s little chair 
in such agitation that Mr. Cardross looked up from his 
book, and Helen from her peaceful needle-work, which 
was rarely out of her active hands. 

9 


130 


A Noble Life. 


“ He thinks he has seen his master’s wraith ; and be- 
cause the earl signed his will this morning, he is sure to 
die, especially as Lord Cairnforth saw the same thing 
himself. Will you say, my lord, what you did see?” 

a Mr. Menteith, I believe I saw a man peering m at 
that window.” 

a It wasna a man — it was a speerit,” moaned Malcolm. 
“ My lord’s wraith, for sure.” 

“ I don’t think so, Malcolm ; for it was a tall, thin fig- 
ure that moved about lightly and airily — was come and 
gone in a moment. Not very like my wraith, unless the 
wraith of myself as I might have been.” 

The little party were silent till Helen said, 

“ What do you think it was, then ?” 

“ Certainly a man, made of honest flesh and blood, 
though not much of either, for he was excessively thin 
and sickly-looking. He just ‘keekit in,’ as Malcolm 
says, and disappeared.” 

“ What a very odd circumstance !” said Mr. Menteith. 
“ Not a robber, I trust. I am much more afraid of rob- 
bers than of ghosts.” 

“We never rob at Cairnforth; we are very honest 
people here. No, I think it is far likelier to be one of 
those stray tourists who are brought here by the steam- 
ers. They sometimes take great liberties, wandering into 
the Castle grounds, and perhaps one of them thought he 
might as well come and stare in at my windows.” 

“ I hope he was English ; I should not like a Scotsman 
to do such a rude thing,” cried Helen, indignantly 

Lord Cairnforth laughed at her impulsiveness. There 
was much of the child nature mingled in Helen’s gravity 


131 


A Noble Life . 

and wisdom, and she sometimes did both speak and act 
from impulse — especially generous and kindly impulse — - 
as hastily and unthinkingly as a child. 

“ Well, Malcolm, the only way to settle this difficulty 
is to search the house and grounds. Take a good thick 
stick and a lantern, and whatever you find — be it tourist 
Dr burglar, man or spirit — bring him at once to me.” 

And then the little group waited, laughing among 
themselves, but still not quite at ease. Lord Cairnforth 
would not allow Mr. Cardross and Helen to walk home ; 
the carriage was ordered to be made ready. 

Presently Malcolm appeared, somewhat crestfallen. 

“ It is a man, my lord, and no speerit. But he wadna 
come ben. He says he’ll wait your lordship’s will, and 
that’s his name,” laying a card before the earl, who looked 
at it and started with surprise. 

“Mr. Menteith, just see — ‘Captain Ernest Henry Bruce.’ 
What an odd coincidence!” 

“ Coincidence indeed !” repeated the lawyer, skeptical- 
ly. “Let me see the card.” 

“ Ernest Henry ! was that the name of the young man 
whom you sent out to India?” 

“ How should I remember? It was ten or fifteen years 
ago. Very annoying! However, since he is a Bruce, or 
says he is, I suppose your lordship must just see him.” 

“ Certainly,” replied, in his quiet, determined tone, the 
Earl of Cairnforth. 

Helen, who looked exceedingly surprised, offered to 
Retire, but the earl would not hear of it. 

“ Ho, no ; you are a wise woman, and an acute one too. 
I would like you to see and judge of this cousin of mine 


132 


A Noble Life, 


— a faraway cousin, who would like well enough, Mr. 
Menteith guesses, to be my heir. But we will not judge 
him harshly, and especially we will not prejudge him. 
His father was nothing to boast of, but this may be a 
very honest man for all we know. Sit by me, Helen, 
and take a good look at him.” 

And, with a certain amused pleasure, the earl watched 
Helen’s puzzled air at being made of so much import- 
ance, till the stranger appeared. 

He was a man of about thirty, though at first sight he 
seemed older, from his exceedingly worn and sickly ap- 
pearance. His lank black hair fell about his thin, sallow 
face; he wore what we now call the Byron collar and 
Byron tie — for it was in the Byron era, when sentiment- 
alism and misery-making were all the fashion. Certain- 
ly the poor captain looked miserable enough, without any 
pretense of it ; for, besides his thin and unhealthy aspect, 
his attire was in the lowest depth of genteel shabbiness. 
Nevertheless, he looked gentlemanly, and clever too ; nor 
was it an unpleasant face, though the lower half of it indi- 
cated weakness and indecision; and the eyes — large, dark, 
and hollow — were a little too closely set together, a pecul- 
iarity which always gives an uncandid, and often a rath- 
er sinister expression to any face. Still, there was some* 
thing about the unexpected visitor decidedly interesting. 

Even Helen looked up from her work once — twice — 
with no small curiosity ; she saw so few strangers, and 
of men, and young men, almost none, from year’s end to 
year’s end. Yet it was a look as frank, as unconscious, 
as maidenly as might have been Miranda’s first glance at 
Ferdinand. 


A Noble Life . 


133 


Captain Bruce did not return her glance at all. His 
whole attention was engrossed by Lord Cairnforth. 

“ My lord, I am so sorry — so very sorry — if I startled 
you by my rudeness. The group inside was so cheering 
a sight, and I was a poor weary wayfarer.” 

“Do not apologize, Captain Bruce. I am happy to 
make your acquaintance.” 

“ It has been the wish of my life, Lord Cairnforth, to 
make yours.” 

Lord Cairnforth turned upon him eyes sharp enough 
to make a less acute person than the captain feel that 
honesty, rather than flattery, was the safest tack to go 
upon. He took the hint. 

“ That is, I have wished, ever since I came home from 
India, to thank you and Mr. Menteith — this is Mr. Men- 
teith, I presume ? — for my cadetship, which I got through 
you. And though my ill health has blighted my pros- 
pects, and after some service — for I exchanged from the 
Company’s civil into the military service — I have re- 
turned to England an invalided and disappointed man, 
still my gratitude is exactly the same, and I was anxious 
to see and thank you, as my benefactor and my cousin.” 

Lord Cairnforth merely bent his head in answer to this 
long speech, which a little perplexed him. He, like 
Helen, was both unused and indifferent to strangers. 

But Captain Bruce seemed determined not to be made 
a stranger. After the brief ceremony of introduction to 
the little party, he sat down close to Lord Cairnforth, dis- 
placing Helen, who quietly retired, and began to unfold 
all his circumstances, giving as credentials of identity a 
medal received for some Indian battle ; a letter from his 


134 


A Noble Life . 


father, the colonel, whose handwriting Mr Menteith im- 
mediately recognized, and other data, which sufficiently 
proved that he really was the person he assumed to be. 

“ For,” said he, with that exceedingly frank manner he 
had, the sort of manner particularly taking with reserved 
people, because it saves them so much trouble — “for 
otherwise how should you know that I am not an im- 
postor — a swindler — instead of your cousin, which I hope 
you believe I really am, Lord Cairnforth ?” 

“Certainly,” said the earl, smiling, and looking both 
amused and interested by this little adventure, so novel 
in his monotonous life. 

Also, his kindly heart was touched by the sickly and 
feeble aspect of the young man, by his appearance of 
poverty, and by something in his air which the earl fan- 
cied implied that brave struggle against misfortune, more 
pathetic than misfortune itself. With undisguised pleas- 
ure, the young host sat and watched his guest doing full 
justice to the very best supper that the Castle could fur* 
nish. 

“You are truly a good Samaritan,” said Captain Bruce, 
pouring out freely the claret which was then the uni- 
versal drink of even the middle classes in Scotland. “ I 
had fallen among thieves (literally, for my small baggage 
was stolen from me yesterday, and I have no worldly 
goods beyond the clothes I stand in) ; you meet me, my 
good cousin, with oil and wine, and set me on your own 
beast, which I fear I shall have to ask you to do, for I am 
not strong enough to walk any distance. How far is it 
to the nearest inn?” 

“ About twenty miles. But we will discuss that ques- 


A Noble Life. 135 

tion presently. In the mean time, eat and drink ; you 
need it.” 

“ Ah! yes. You have never known hunger — I hope 
you never may ; but it is not a pleasant thing, I assure 
you, actually to want food.” 

Helen looked up sympathetically. As Captain Bruce 
took not the slightest notice of her, she had ample oppor- 
tunity to observe him. Pity for his worn face made her 
lenient. Lord Cairnforth read her favorable judgment 
in her eyes, and it inclined him also to judge kindly of 
the stranger. Mr. Menteith alone, more familiar with the 
world, and goaded by it into that sharp suspiciousness 
which is the last hardening of a kindly and generous 
heart — Mr. Menteith held aloof for some time, till at last 
even he succumbed to the charm of the captain’s con- 
versation. Mr. Cardross had already fallen a willing vic- 
tim, for he had latterly been deep in the subject of War- 
ren Hastings, and to meet with any one who came direct 
from that wondrous land of India, then as mysterious 
and far-away a region as the next world, to people in 
England, and especially in the wilds of Scotland, was to 
the good minister a delight indescribable. 

Captain Bruce, who had at first paid little attention to 
any body but his cousin, soon exercised his faculty of be- 
ing “ all things to all men,” gave out his stores of informa- 
tion, bent all his varied powers to gratify Lord Cairn- 
forth’s friends, and succeeded. 

The clock had struck twelve, and still the little party 
were gathered round the supper-table. Captain Bruce 
rose. 

u I am ashamed to have detained you from your natu- 


136 


A Noble Life . 

ral rest, Lord Cairnforth. I am but a poor sleeper my« 
self ; my cough often disturbs me much. Perhaps, as 
there is no inn, one of your servants could direct me to 
some cottage near, where I could get a night’s lodging, 
and go on my way to-morrow. Any humble place will 
do ; I am accustomed to rough it ; besides, it suits my 
finances : half-pay to a sickly invalid is hard enough — 
you understand?” 

“Ido.” 

“ Still, if I could only get health ! I have been told 
that this part of the country is very favorable to people 
with delicate lungs. Perhaps I might meet with some 
farm-house lodging?” 

“I could not possibly allow that,” said Lord Cairn 
forth, unable, in spite of all Mr. Menteith’s grave warning 
looks, to shut up his warm heart any longer. “ The 
Castle is your home, Captain Bruce, for as long as you 
may find it pleasant to remain here.” 

The invitation, given so unexpectedly and cordially, 
seemed to surprise, nay, to touch the young man ex- 
ceedingly. 

“ Thank you, my cousin. You are very kind to me, 
which is more than I can say of the world in general. I 
will thankfully stay with you for a little. It might give 
me a chance of health.” 

“ I trust so.” 

Still, to make all clear between host and guest, let me 
name some end to my visit. This is the first day of 
July ; may I accept your hospitality for a fortnight — say 
till the 15th ?” 

“ Till whenever you please,” replied the earl, courte* 


A Noble Life . 


137 


ously and warmly ; for he was pleased to find his cousin, 
even though a Bruce, so very agreeable ; glad, too, that 
he had it in his power to do him a kindness, which, per- 
haps, had too long been neglected. Besides, Lord Cairn- 
forth had few friends, and youth so longs for companion- 
ship. This was actually the first time he had had a 
chance of forming an intimacy with a young man of his 
own age, education, and position, and he caught at it with 
avidity, the more so because Captain Bruce seemed likely 
to supply all the things which he had not and never 
could have — knowledge of the world outside; “hair- 
breadth ’scapes” and adventurous experiences, told with 
a point and cleverness that added to their charm. 

Besides, the captain was decidedly “interesting.” 
Young ladies would have thought him so, with his pale 
face and pensive air, which, seeing that the Byron fever 
had not yet attacked the youths of Cairnforth, appeared 
to his simple audience a melancholy quite natural and 
not assumed. And his delicacy of health was a fact only 
too patent. There was a hectic brilliant color on his 
cheek, and his cough interrupted him continually. His 
whole appearance implied that, in any case, a long life 
was scarcely probable, and this alone was enough to 
soften any tender heart toward him. 

“ What does Helen think of my new cousin ?” whis- 
pered Lord Cairnforth, looking up to her with his affec- 
tionate eyes, as she bent over his chair to bid him good- 
night. 

“ I like him,” was the frank answer. “ He is very 
agreeable, and then he looks so ill.” 

“ Was I right in asking him to stay here ?” 


138 


A Noble Life , 


“ Yes, I think so. He is your nearest relation, and, as 
the proverb says, 1 Bluid is thicker than water.’ ” 

“Not always.” 

“But now you will soon be able to judge how you 
like him, and if you do like him, I hope you will be very 
kind to him.” 

“ Do you, Helen ? Then I certainly will.” 

The earl kept his word. Many weeks went by ; the 
15th of July was long past, and still Captain Bruce re- 
mained a guest at the Castle — quite domesticated, for he 
soon made himself as much at home as if he had dwelt 
there all his days. He fluctuated a little between the 
Castle and the Manse, but soon decided that the latter 
was “rather a dull house” — the boys rough — the minis- 
ter too much of a student — and Miss Cardross “ a very 
good sort of girl, but certainly no beauty,” which dictum, 
delivered in an oracular manner, as from one well accus- 
tomed to criticise the sex, always amused the earl ex- 
ceedingly. 

To Lord Cairnforth, his new-found cousin devoted him 
self in the most cousinly way. Tender, respectful, unob- 
trusive, bestowing on him enough, and not too much of 
his society; never interfering, and yet always at hand 
with any assistance required : he was exactly the com- 
panion which the earl needed, and liked constantly be* 
side him. For, of course, Malcolm, fond and faithful as 
he was, was only a servant ; a friend, who was also a gen- 
tleman, yet who did not seem to feel or dislike the many 
small cares and attentions which were necessities to Lord 
Cairnforth, was quite a different thing. It was a touch- 
ing contrast to see the two together; the active, elegant 


A Noble Life . 


189 


young man — for, now he was well-dressed, Captain Bruce 
looked remarkably elegant and gentlemanly, and the lit- 
tle motionless figure, as impassive and helpless almost as 
an image carved in stone, but yet who was undoubtedly 
the Earl of Cairnforth, and sole master of Cairnforth 
Castle. 

Perhaps the wisest hit of the captain’s proceedings was 
the tact with which he always recognized this fact, and 
paid his cousin that respect and deference, and that tacit 
acknowledgment of his rights of manhood and govern- 
ment which could not but be soothing and pleasant to 
one so afflicted. Or perhaps — let us give the kindest in- 
terpretation possible to all things — the earl’s helplessness 
and loveableness touched a chord long silent, or never 
stirred before in the heart of the man of the world. Pos- 
sibly — who can say ? — he really began to like him. 

At any rate, he seemed as if he did, and Lord Cairn- 
forth gave back to him in double measure all that he be- 
stowed. 

As a matter of course, all the captain’s pecuniary needs 
were at once supplied. His threadbare clothes became 
mysteriously changed into a wardrobe supplied with 
every thing that a gentleman could desire, and a rather 
luxurious gentleman too; which, owing to his Indian 
habits and his delicate health, the young captain turned 
out to be. At first he resisted all this kindness ; but all 
remonstrances being soon overcome, he took his luxu- 
ries quite naturally, and evidently enjoyed them, though 
scarcely so much as the earl himself. 

To that warm heart, which had never had half enough 
of ties whereon to expend itself and its wealth of gener- 


140 


A Noble Life . 


osity, it was perfectly delicious to see the sick soldier 
daily gaining health by riding the Cairnforth horses, 
shooting over the moors, or fishing in the lochs. Never 
had the earl so keenly enjoyed his own wealth, and the 
blessings it enabled him to lavish abroad ; never in his 
lifetime had he looked so thoroughly contented. 

“ Helen,” he said one day, when she had come up for 
an hour or two to the Castle, and then, as usual, Captain 
Bruce had taken the opportunity of riding out — he own- 
ed he found Miss Cardross’s company and conversation 
u slow” — “Helen, that young man looks stronger and 
better every day. What a bright-looking fellow he is ! 
It does one good to see him.” And the earl followed 
with his eyes the graceful steed and equally graceful 
rider, caracoling in front of the Castle windows. 

Helen said nothing. 

“ I think,” he continued, “ that the next best thing to 
being happy one’s self is to be able to make other people 
so. Perhaps that may be the sort of happiness they have 
in the next world. I often speculate about it, and won- 
der what sort of creature I shall find myself there. 
But,” added he, abruptly, “now to business. You will 
be my secretary this morning instead of Bruce?” 

“Willingly;” for, though she too, like Malcolm, had 
been a little displaced by this charming cousin, there was 
not an atom of jealousy in her nature. Hers was that 
pure and unselfish affection which could bear to stand by 
and see those she loved made happy, even though it was 
by another than herself. 

She fell to work in her old way, and the earl employed 
as much as he required her ready handwriting, her clear 


A Noble Life . 


141 


head, and her full acquaintance with every body and ev- 
ery thing in the district ; for Helen was a real minister’s 
daughter — as popular and as necessary in the parish as 
the minister himself; and she was equally important at 
the Castle, where she was consulted, as this morning, on 
every thing Lord Cairnforth was about to do, and on the 
wisest way of expending — he did not wish to save — the 
large yearly income which he now seemed really begin- 
ning to enjoy. 

Helen, too, after a long morning’s work, drew her 
breath with a sigh of pleasure. 

“ What a grand thing it is to be as rich as you are !” 

“ Why so?” 

“One can do such a deal of good with plenty of 
money.” 

“Yes. Should you like to be very rich, Helen?” 
watching her with an amused look. 

Helen shook her head and laughed. “ Oh, it’s no use 
asking me the question, for I shall never have the chance 
of being rich.” 

“ You can not say ; you might marry, for instance.” 

“That is not likely. Papa could never do without 
me; besides, as the folk say, Pm ‘ no bonnie, ye ken.’ 
But,” speaking more seriously, “indeed, I never think of 
marrying. If it is to be it will be ; if not, I am quite 
happy as I am. And for money, can I not always come 
to you whenever I want it? You supply me endlessly 
for my poor people. And, as Captain Bruce was saying 
to papa the other night, you are a perfect mine of gold — 
and of generosity.” 

“Helen,” Lord Cairnforth said, after he had sat think- 


142 


A Noble Life . 


ing a while, “I wanted to consult you about Captain 
Bruce. How do you like him ? That is, do you still 
continue to like him, for I know you did at first?” 

“ And I do still. I feel so very sorry for him.” 

“ Only, my dear” — Lord Cairnforth sometimes called 
her “ my dear,” and spoke to her with a tender, superior 
wisdom — “ one’s link to one’s friends ought to be a little 
stronger than being sorry for them ; one ought to respect 
them. One must respect them before one can trust them 
very much — with one’s property, for instance.” 

“ Do you mean,” said straightforward Helen, “ that you 
have any thoughts of making Captain Bruce your heir?” 

“ No, certainly not ; but I have grave doubts whether 
I ought not to remember him in my will, only I wished 
to see his health re-established first, since, had he contin- 
ued as delicate as when he came, he might not even have 
outlived me.” 

“ How calmly you talk of all this,” said Helen, with a 
little shiver. She, full of life and health, could hardly 
realize the feeling of one who stood always on the brink 
of another world, and looking to that world only for real 
health — real life. 

“I think of it calmly, and therefore speak calmly. 
But, dear Helen, I will not grieve you to-day. There is 
plenty of time, and all is safe, whatever happens. I can 
trust my successor to do rightly. As for my cousin, I 
will try him a little longer, lest he prove 

‘ A little more: than kin, and less than kind.’ ” 

“ There seems no likelihood of that. He always speaks 
in the warmest manner of you whenever he comes to the 


143 


A Noble Life . 

Manse ; that is what makes me like him, I fancy ; and 
also, because I would always believe the best of people 
until I found out to the contrary. Life would not be 
worth having if we were continually suspecting every 
body — believing every body bad till we had found them 
out to be good. If so, with many, I fear we should never 
find tne good out at all. That is — I can’t put it cleverly, 
like you, but I know what I mean.” 

Lord Cairnforth smiled. “So do I, Helen, which is 
quite enough for us two. We will talk this over some 
other time ; and meanwhile” — he looked at her earnestly 
and spoke with meaning — “if ever you have an oppor- 
tunity of being kind to Captain Bruce, remember he is 
my next of kin, and I wish it.” 

“ Certainly,” answered Helen. “ But I am never like- 
ly to have the chance of doing any kindness to such a 
very fine gentleman.” 

Lord Cairnforth smiled to himself once more, and let 
the conversation end ; afterward — long afterward, he re- 
called it, and thought with a strange comfort that then, 
at least, there was nothing to conceal ; nothing but sin- 
cerity in the sweet, honest face — not pretty, but so per- 
fectly candid and true — with the sun shining on the lint- 
white hair, and the bright blue eyes meeting his, guileless 
as a child’s. Ay, and however they were dimmed with 
care and washed with tears — oceans of bitterness — that 
innocent, childlike look never, even when she was an old 
woman, quite faded out of Helen’s eyes. 

“ Ay,” Lord Cairnforth said to himself, when she had 
gone away, and he was left alone in that helpless solitude 
which, being the inevitable necessity, had grown into the 


144 


A Noble Life . 


familiar habit of his life, “ay, it is all right. No harm 
could come — there would be nothing neglected — even 
were I to die to-morrow.” 

That “ dying to-morrow,” which might happen to any 
one of us, how few really recognize it and prepare for it ! 
Not in the ordinary religious sense of “ preparation for 
death” — often a most irreligious thing — a frantic attempt 
of sinning and terror-stricken humanity to strike a bal- 
ance-sheet with heaven, just leaving a sufficient portion 
on the credit side — but preparation in the ordinary world- 
ly meaning — keeping one’s affairs straight and clear, that 
no one may be perplexed therewith afterward ; forgiving 
and asking forgiveness of offenses; removing evil done, 
and delaying not for a day any good that it is possible 
to do. 

It was a strange thing; but, as after his death it was 
discovered, the true secret of the wonderful calmness and 
sweetness which, year by year, deepened more and more 
in Lord Cairnforth’s character, ripening it to a perfectness 
in which those who only saw the outside of his could 
hardly believe, consisted in this ever-abiding thought — - 
that he might die to-morrow. Existence was to him such 
a mere twilight, dim, imperfect, and sad, that he never 
rested in it, but lived every day, as it were, in the pros- 
pect of the eternal dawn. 


Copter Ifyt Minify* 




This summer, which, as it glided away, Lord Cairn* 
forth often declared to be the happiest of his life, ended 
by bringing him the first heavy affliction — external afflic- 
tion — which his life had ever known. 

Suddenly, in the midst of the late-earned rest of a very 
toilsome career, died Mr. Menteith, the earl’s long-faithful 
friend, who had been almost as good to him as a father. 
He felt it sorely ; the more so, because, though his own 
frail life seemed always under the imminent shadow of 
death, death had never touched him before as regarded 
other people. He had lived, as we all unconsciously do, 
till the great enemy smites us, feeling as if, whatever 
might be the case with himself, those whom he loved 
could never die. This grief was something quite new to 
him, and it struck him hard. 

The tidings came on a gloomy day in late October, the 
season when Cairnforth is least beautiful ; for the thick 
woods about it make the always damp atmosphere heavy 
with “the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves,” and the 
toads lying deep in mud, and the low shore hung with 
constant mists, give a general impression of dreariness. 
The far-away hills vanish entirely for days together, and 
the loch itself takes a leaden hue, as if it never could be 
blue again. You can hardly believe that the sun will 


148 


A Noble Life . 

ever again shine out upon it , the white waves rise, the 
mountains reappear, and the whole scene grows clear and 
lovely, as life does sometimes if we have only patience to 
endure through the weary winter until spring. 

But for the good man, John Menteith, his springs and 
winters were alike ended ; he was gathered to his fathers, 
and his late ward mourned him bitterly. 

Mr. Cardross and Helen, coming up to the Castle as 
soon as the news reached them, found Lord Cairnforth 
in a state of depression such as they had never before 
witnessed in him. One of the things which seemed to 
affect him most painfully, as small things sometimes do 
in the midst of deepest grief, was that he could not at- 
tend Mr. Menteith’s funeral. 

“ Every other man,” said he, sadly, “every other man 
can follow his dear friends and kindred to the grave, can 
give them respect in death as he has given them love and 
help during life — I can do neither. I can help no one — 
be of use to no one. I am a mere cumberer of the ground. 
It would be better if I were away.” 

“Hush! do not dare to say that,” answered Mr. Card- 
ross. And he sent the rest away, even Helen, and sat 
down beside his old pupil, not merely as a friend, but as 
a minister — in the deepest meaning of the word, even as 
it was first used of Him who “ came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister.” 

Helen’s father was not a demonstrative man under or- 
dinary circumstances ; he was too much absorbed in his 
books, and in a sort of languid indifference to worldly 
matters, which had long hung over him, more or less, 
ever since his wife’s death ; but, when occasion arose, he 


A Noble Life. 


149 


could rise equal to it; and he was one of those comforters 
who knew the way through the valley of affliction by 
the marks which their own feet have trod. 

He and the earl spent a whole hour alone together. 
Afterward, when sorrow, compared to which the present 
grief was calm and sacred, fell upon them both, they re- 
membered this day, and were not afraid to open their 
wounded hearts to one another. 

At last Mr. Cardross came out of the library, and told 
Helen that Lord Cairnforth wanted to speak to her. 

“He wishes to have your opinion, as well as my own, 
about a journey he is projecting to Edinburg, and some 
business matters which he desires to arrange there. I 
think he would have liked to see Captain Bruce too. 
Where is he?” 

The captain had found this atmosphere of sorrow a 
little too overpowering, and had disappeared for a long 
ride ; so Miss Cardross had been sitting alone all the 
time. 

“Your father has been persuading me, Helen,” said 
the earl, when she came in, “ that I am not quite so use- 
less in the world as I imagined. He says he has reason 
to believe, from things Mr. Menteith let fall, that my dear 
old friend’s widow is not very well provided for, and she 
and her children will have a hard battle even now. Mr. 
Cardross thinks I can help her very materially, in one 
way especially. You know I have made my will?” 

“Yes,” replied unconscious Helen, “you told me so.” 

“ Mr. Menteith drew it up the last time he was here. 
How little we thought it would be really the last time J 
Ah ! Helen, if we could only look forward 1” 


150 


A Noble Life. 


11 It is best not,” said Helen, earnestly. 

“ Well, my will is made. And though in it I left 
nothing to Mr. Menteith himself, seeing that such a re- 
turn of his kindness would be very unwelcome, I insisted 
on doing what was equivalent — bequeathing a thousand 
pounds to each of his children. Was I right in that? 
You do not object?” 

“ Most assuredly not,” answered Helen, though a little 
surprised at the question. Still, she was so long accus- 
tomed to be consulted by the earl, and to give her opin- 
ion frankly and freely on all points, that the surprise was 
only momentary. 

“ And, by the way, I mean to leave the same sum — 
one thousand pounds — to my cousin, Captain Bruce. Re- 
member that, Helen ; remember it particularly, will you ? 
in case any thing should happen before I have time to 
add this to my will. But to the Menteiths. Your fa- 
ther thinks, and I agree with him, that the money I de- 
sign for them will be far better spent now, or some por- 
tion of it, in helping these fatherless children on in the 
world, than in keeping them waiting for my death, which 
may not happen for years. What do you think?” 

Helen agreed heartily. It would cause a certain dim- 
inution of yearly income, but then the earl had far more 
than enough for his own wants, and if not spent thus, 
the sum would certainly have been expended by him in 
some other form of benevolence. She said as much* 

“Possibly it might. What else should I do with it?” 
was Lord Cairnforth’s answer. “ But, in order to get at 
the money, and alter my will, so that in no case should 
this sum be paid twice over, to the injury of my heir— I 


A Noble Life, 151 

must take care of my heir,” and he slightly smiled, “I 
ought to go at once to Edinburg. Shall I ?” 

Helen hesitated. The earl’s last journey had been so 
unpropitious — he had taken so long a time to recover 
from it — that she had earnestly hoped he would never 
attempt another. She expressed this as delicately as she 
could. 

“ No, I never would have attempted it for myself. 
Change is only pain and weariness to me. I have no 
wish to leave dear, familiar Cairnforth till I leave it for 
— the place where my good old friend is now. And 
sometimes, Helen, I fancy the hills of Paradise will not 
be very unlike the hills about our loch. You would 
think of me far away, when you were looking at them 
sometimes ?” 

Helen fixed her tender eyes upon him — “It is quite as 
likely that you may have to think of me thus, for I may 
go first; I am the elder of us two. But all that is in 
God’s hands alone. About Edinburg now. When should 
you start?” 

“ At once, I think; though, with my slow traveling, I 
should not be in time for the funeral ; and even if I were, 
I could not attend it without giving much trouble to oth- 
er people. But, as your father has shown me, the funer 
al does not signify. The great matter is to be of use to 
Mrs. Menteith and the children in the way I explained 
Have I your consent, my dear ?” 

For answer, Helen pointed to a few lines in a Bible 
which lay open on the library table : no doubt her fa- 
ther had been reading out of it, for it was open at that 
portion which seems to have plumbed the depth of all 


152 A Noble Life. 

human anguish — the Book of Job. She repeated the 
verses : 

“ 1 When the ear heard me, then it blessed me ; and 
when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me ; 

“ 4 Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fa- 
therless, and him that had none to help him : 

“ 1 The blessing of him that was ready to perish came 
upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.’ 

“ That is what will be said of you one day, Lord Cairn- 
forth. Is not this something worth living for?” 

“ Ay, it is !” replied the earl, deeply moved ; and Helen 
was scarcely less so. 

They discussed no more the journey to Edinburg; but 
Lord Cairnforth, in his decided way, gave orders imme- 
diately to prepare for it, taking with him, as usual, Mal- 
colm and Mrs. Campbell. By the time Captain Bruce 
returned from his ride, the guest was startled by the news 
that his host meant to quit Cairnforth at daylight the 
next morning, which appeared to disconcert the captain 
exceedingly. 

“ I would volunteer to accompany you, cousin,” said 
he, after expressing his extreme surprise and regret, “ but 
the winds of Edinburg are ruin to my weak lungs, which 
the air here suits so well. So I must prepare to quit 
pleasant Cairnforth, where I have received so much kind- 
ness, and which I have grown to regard almost like home 
— the nearest approach to home that in my sad, wander- 
ing life I ever knew.” 

There was an unmistakable regret in the young man’s 
tone which, in spite of his own trouble, went to the earl’s 
good heart. 


A Noble Life . 


153 


“ Why should you leave at all ?” said he. “ Why not 
remain here and await my return, which can not be long 
delayed — two months at most — even counting my slow 
traveling? I will give you something to do meanwhile: 
I will make you viceroy of Cairnforth during my absence 
— that is, under Miss Cardross, who alone knows all the 
parish affairs — and mine. Will you accept the office?” 

“ Under Miss Cardross?” Captain Bruce laughed, but 
did not seem quite to relish it. However, he expressed 
much gratitude at having been thought worthy of the 
earl's confidence. 

“Don’t be humble, my good cousin and friend. If I 
did not trust you, and like you, I should never think of 
asking you to stay. Mr. Cardross — Helen — what do you 
say to my plan ?” 

Both gave a cordial assent, as was indeed certain. 
Nothing ill was known of Captain Bruce, and nothing 
noticed in him unlikeable, or unworthy of liking. And 
even as to his family, who wrote to him constantly, and 
whose letters he often showed, there had appeared suffi- 
cient evidence in their favor to counterbalance much of 
the suspicions against them, so that the earl was glad he 
had leaned to the charitable side in making his cousin 
welcome to Cairnforth ; glad, too, that he could atone by 
Warm confidence and extra kindness for what now seemed 
too long a neglect of those who were really his nearest 
kith and kin. 

Mr. Cardross also; any prejudices he had from his 
knowledge of the late earl’s troubles with the Bruces 
were long ago dispersed. And Helen was too innocent 
herself ever to have had a prejudice at all. She said, 


154 


A Noble Life . 

when appealed to pointedly by the earl, as he now often 
appealed to her in many things, that she thought the 
scheme both pleasant and advisable. 

“ And now, papa,” added she, for her watchful eye de- 
tected Lord Cairnforth’s pale face and wearied air, “ let 
tis say good-night — and good-by.” 

Long after, they remembered, all of them, what an ex- 
ceedingly quiet and ordinary good-by it was, none hav- 
ing the slightest feeling that it was more than a tempora- 
ry parting. The whole thing had been so sudden, and 
the day’s events appeared quite shadowy, and as if every 
body would wake up to-morrow morning to find them 
nothing but a dream. 

Besides, there was a little hurrying and confusion con- 
sequent on the earl’s insisting on sending the Cardrosses 
home, for the dull, calm day had changed into the wild- 
est of nights — one of those sudden equinoctial storms, 
that in an hour or two alter the whole aspect of things in 
this region. 

“You must take the carriage, Helen — you and your 
father ; it is the last thing I can do for you — and I would 
do every thing in the world for you if I could ; but I 
shall, one day. Good-by. Take care of yourself, my 
dear.” 

These were the earl’s farewell words to her. She was 
so accustomed to his goodness and kindness that she 
never thought much about them till long afterward, when 
kindness was gone, and goodness seemed the merest de- 
lusion and dream. 

When his friends had departed, Lord Cairnforth sat 
silent and melancholy. His cousin good-naturedly tried 


155 


A Noble Life. 

to rouse him into the usual contest at chess with which 
they had begun to while away the long winter evenings, 
and which just suited Lord Cairnforth s acute, accurate, 
and introspective brain, accustomed to plan and to order, 
so that he delighted in the game, and was soon as good a 
player as his teacher. But now his mind was disturbed 
and restless; he sat by the fireside, listening to the fierce 
wind that went howling round and round the Castle, as 
the wind can howl along the sometimes placid shores of 
Loch Beg. 

“ I hope they have reached the Manse in safety. Let 
me know, Malcolm, when the carriage returns. I will go 
to bed then. I wish they would have remained here ; 
but the minister never will stay ; he dislikes sleeping a 
single night from under his own roof. Is he not a good 
man, cousin — one of a thousand ?” 

“I have not the slightest doubt of it.” 

“And his daughter — have you in any way modified 
your opinion of her, which at first was not very favora- 
ble?” 

“ Not as to her beauty, certainly,” was the careless re- 
ply. “She’s 1 no bonnie,’ as you say in these parts — 
terribly Scotch ; but she is very good. Only don’t you 
think good people are just a little wearisome sometimes?” 

The earl smiled. He was accustomed to, and often 
rather amused by his cousin’s honest worldliness and out- 
spoken skepticisms — that candid confession of badness 
which always inclines a kindly heart to believe the very 
best of the penitent. 

i “ Nevertheless, though Miss Cardross may be 4 no bon- 
nie/ and too good to please your taste, I hope you will go 


156 


A Noble Life . 

often to the Manse in my absence, and write me word 
how they are, otherwise I shall hear little — the minister’s 
letters are too voluminous to be frequent — and Miss Card- 
ross is not given to much correspondence.” 

Captain Bruce promised, and again the two young men 
sat silent, listening to the eerie howling of the wind. It 
inclined both of them to graver talk than was their habit 
when together. 

“ I wonder,” said the earl, “ whether this blast, accord- 
ing to popular superstition, is come to carry many souls 
away with it ‘ on the wings of the wind !’ Where will 
they fly to the instant they leave the body ? How free 
and happy they must feel !” 

“ What an odd fancy! and not a particularly pleasant 
one,” replied the captain, with a shiver. 

“ Not unpleasant, to my mind. I like to think of these 
things. If I were out of the body, I should, if I could, 
fly back to Cairnforth.” 

“Pray don’t imagine such dreadful things. May you 
live a hundred years !” 

“ Not quite, I hope. A hundred years — of my life ! 
No. The most loving friend I have would not wish it for 
me.” Then, suddenly, as with an impulse created by the 
sad events of the day — the stormy night — and the dis- 
turbed state of his own mental condition, inclining him 
to any sort of companionship, “ Cousin, I am going to 
trust you, specially, in a matter of business which I wish 
named to the Cardrosses. I should have done so be- 
fore they left to-night. May I confide to you the mes- 
sage ?” 

“Willingly. What is it about?” and the captain’s 


157 


A Noble Life. 

keen black eyes assumed an expression which, if the earl 
had noticed, he might have repented of his trust. But 
no, he never would have noticed it. His upright, honest 
nature, though capable of great reserve, was utterly in- 
capable of false pretenses, deceit, or self-interested diplo- 
macy. And what was impossible in himself he never 
suspected in other people. He thought his cousin shal- 
low sometimes, but good-natured ; a little worldly, per- 
haps, but always well-meaning. That Captain Bruce 
could have come to Cairnforth for any other purpose than 
mere curiosity, and remained there for any motive except 
idleness and the pursuit of health, did not occur to Lord 
Cairnforth. 

“ It is on the subject that you so much dislike my talk- 
ing about — my own death ; a probability which I have 
to consider, as being rather nearer to me than it is to 
most people. Should I die, will you remember that my 
will lies at the office of Menteith and Ross, Edinburg?” 

“So you have made your will?” said the captain, 
rather eagerly; then added, “What a courageous man 
you are! I never durst make mine. But then, to be 
sure, I have nothing to leave — except my sword, which I 
hereby make over to you, well-beloved cousin.” 

“ Thank you, though I should have very little use for 
it. And that reminds me to explain something. The 
day I made my will was, by an odd chance, the day you 
arrived here. Had I known you then, I should have 
named you in it, leaving you — I may as well tell you the 
sum — a thousand pounds, in token of cousinly regard.” 

“You are exceedingly kind, but I am no fortune- 
hunter.” 


158 


A Noble Life . 

“ I know that. Still, the legacy may not be useless 
I shall make it legally secure as soon as I get to Edin- 
burg. In any case you are quite safe, for I have men- 
tioned you to my heir.” 

“ Your heir ! who do you mean ?” interrupted Captain 
Bruce, thrown off his guard by excessive surprise. 

The earl said, with a little dignity of manner, “ It is 
scarcely needful to answer your question. The title, you 
are aware, will be extinct ; I meant the successor to my 
landed property.” 

“Do I know the gentleman?” 

“I named no gentleman.” 

“ Not surely a lady ? Not — ” a light suddenly break- 
ing in upon him, so startling that it overthrew all his 
self-control, and even his good breeding. “It can not 
possibly be Miss Helen Cardross?” 

“Captain Bruce,” said the earl, the angry color flash- 
ing all over his pale face, “ I was simply communicating 
a message to you; there was no need for any farther 
questioning.” 

“ I beg your pardon, Lord Cairnfortn,” returned the 
other, perceiving how great a mistake he had made. “ I 
have no right whatever to question, or even to speculate 
concerning your heir, who is doubtless the fittest person 
you could have selected.” 

“ Most certainly,” replied the earl, in a manner which 
put a final stop to the conversation. 

It was not resumed on any other topics ; and shortly 
afterward, Malcolm having come in with the announce- 
ment that the carriage had returned from the Manse (at 
which Captain Bruce’s sharp eyes were bent scrutiniz- 


A Noble Life . 159 

ingly on the earl’s face, but learned nothing thence), the 
cousins separated. 

The captain had faithfully promised to be up at dawn 
to see the travelers off, but an apology came from him to 
the effect that the morning air was too damp for his lungs, 
and that he had spent a sleepless night owing to his 
<cough. 

“ An’ nae wonder,” remarked Malcolm, cynically, as he 
delivered the message, “for I heard him a’ through the 
wee hours walkin’ and walkin’ up and doun, for a’ the 
world like a wolf in a cage. And eh, but he’s dour the 
day !” 

“A sickly man finds it difficult not to be dour at 
times,” said the Earl of Cairnforth. 





Cjwpter tj it Ctntlj. 


The earl reached Edinburg in the beginning of winter, 
and in those days an Edinburg winter was a very gay 
season. That brilliant society, which has now become a 
matter of tradition, was then in its zenith. Those re- 
nowned supper-parties, where great wits, learned philoso- 
phers, and clever and beautiful women met together, a 
most enjoyable company, were going on almost every 
night, and drawing into their various small circles every 
thing that was most attractive in the larger circle outside. 

Lord Cairnforth was a long time before he suffered 
himself to be drawn in likewise ; but the business which 
detained him in Edinburg grew more and more tedious ; 
he found difficulties arise on every hand, and yet he was 
determined not to leave until he had done all he wanted 
to do. Not only in money, but by personal influence, 
which, now that he tried to use it, he found was consid- 
erable, he furthered, in many ways, the interests of Mr. 
Menteith’s sons. The widow, too, a gentle, helpless wom- 
an, soon discovered where to come to, on all occasions, 
for counsel and aid. Never had the earl led such a busy 
life — one more active, as far as his capabilities allowed. 

Still, now and then time hung on his hands, and he 
felt a great lack of companionship, until, by degrees, his 
name and a good deal of his history got noised abroad, 


164 


A Noble Life . 

and he was perfectly inundated with acquaintances. Of 
course, he had it at his own option how much or how lit- 
tle he went out into the world. Every advantage that 
rank or fortune could give was his already ; but he had 
another possession still — his own as much here as in the 
solitudes of Cairnforth, the art of making himself “weel 
likit.” The mob of “good society,” which is no better 
than any other mob, will run after money, position, tal- 
ent, beauty, for a time ; but it requires a quality higher 
and deeper than these, and distinct from them all, to pro- 
duce lasting popularity. 

This the earl had. In spite of his infirmities, he pos- 
sessed the rare power of winning love, of making people 
love him for his own sake. At first, of course, his soci- 
ety was sought from mere curiosity, or even through 
meaner motives ; but gradually, like the good clergy- 
man with whom 

“ Fools who came to scoff remained to pray,” 

those who visited him to stare at, or pity a fellow-creature 
so afflicted, remained, attached by his gentleness, his pa- 
tience, his wonderful unselfishness. And some few, of 
noble mind, saw in him the grandest and most religious 
spectacle that men can look upon — a human soul which 
has not suffered itself to be conquered by adversity. 

Yery soon the earl gathered round him, besides ac- 
quaintances, a knot of real friends, affectionate and true, 
who, in the charm of his cultivated mind, and the sim- 
plicity of his good heart, found ample amends for every 
thing that nature had denied him, the loss of which he 
bore so cheerfully and uncomplainingly. 


A Noble Life . 


165 


By -and -by, induced by these, the excellent people 
whom, as by mesmeric attraction, goodness soon draws 
to itself, he began to go out a little into society. It could 
be done, with some personal difficulty and pain, and some 
slight trouble to his friends, which last was for a long 
time his chief objection ; for a merciful familiarity with 
his own affliction had been brought about by time, and 
by the fact that he had never known any other sort of 
existence, and only, as a blind person guesses at colors, 
could speculate upon how it must feel to move about 
freely, to walk and run. He had also lost much of his 
early shyness, and ceased to feel any actual dread of be- 
ing looked at. His chief difficulty was the practical one 
of locomotion, and this for him was solved much easier 
than if he had been a man of limited means. By some 
expenditure of money, and by a good deal of ingenious 
contrivance, he managed to be taken about as easily in 
Edinburg as at Cairnforth ; was present at church and 
law-court, theatre and concert-room, and at many a pleas- 
ant reunion of pleasant people every where. 

For in his heart Lord Cairnforth rather liked society. 
To him, whose external resources were so limited, who 
could in truth do nothing for his own amusement but 
read, social enjoyments were very valuable. He took 
pleasure in watching the encounter of keen wits, the talk 
of clever conversationalists. His own talent in that line 
was not small, though he seldom used it in large circles ; 
but with two or three only about him, the treasures of his 
well-stored mind came out often very brilliantly. Then 
he was so alive to all that was passing in the world out- 
side, and took as keen an interest in politics, social ethics, 


166 


A Noble Life . 


and schemes of philanthropy as if he himself had been 
like other men, instead of being condemned (or exalted 
—which shall we say ? Lis aliter visum /) to a destiny 
of such solemn and awful isolation. 

Yet he never put forward his affliction so as to make 
it painful to those around him. Many, in the generation 
now nearly passed away, long and tenderly remembered 
the little figure, placed motionless in the centre of a bril- 
liant circle — all clever men and charming women — yet 
of whose notice the cleverest and most charming were 
always proud. Not because he was an earl — nobility 
were plentiful enough at Edinburg then — but because he 
was himself. It was a pleasure just to sit beside him M 
and to meet his pleasantness with cheerful chat, gay ban * 
ter, or affectionate earnestness. 

For every body loved him. Women, of course, did; 
they could not help it ; but men were drawn to him like- 
wise, with the sort of reverential tenderness that they 
would feel toward a suffering child or woman — and 
something more — intense respect. His high sense of 
honor, his true manliness, attracted the best of all the no- 
tabilities then constituting that brilliant set ; and there 
was not one of them worth having for a friend at all who 
was not, in greater or less degree, the friend of the Earl 
of Cairnforth. 

But there was another side of his Edinburg life which 
did not appear till long after he had quitted Modern 
Athens forever — nor even then fully; not until he had 
passed quite away from the comments of this mortal 
world. Then, many a struggling author, or worn-out 
professional man, to whom life was all up-hill, or to whom 


A Noble Life. 


167 


sudden misfortune had made the handful of “ siller” a 
matter of absolute salvation to both body and soul — 
scores of such as these afterward recalled hours or half 
hours spent in the cosy study in Charlotte Square, be- 
side the little figure in its chair — outwardly capable of 
so little, yet endowed with both the power and will to 
do so much. Doing it so generously, too, and withal so 
delicately, that the most sensitive went away with their 
pride un wounded, and the most hardened and irreligious 
were softened by it into thankfulness to One higher than 
their earthly benefactor, who was only the medium 
through whom the blessings came. 

These were accidental offices, intermingled with the 
principal duty which the earl had undertaken, and which 
he carried out with unremitting diligence — the care of 
his old friend’s children. He placed some at school, and 
others at college ; those who were already afloat in the 
world he aided with money and influence — an earl’s 
name was so very influential, as, with an amused smile, 
he occasionally discovered. 

But, busy as his new life was, he never forgot his old 
life and his old friends. He turned a deaf ear to all per- 
suasions to take up his permanent abode, according as 
his rank and fortune warranted, in Edinburg. He was 
not unhappy there — he had plenty to do and to enjoy/ 
but his heart was in quiet Cairnforth. Several times, 
troublesome, and even painful as the act of penmanship 
was to him, he sent a few lines to the Manse. But it 
happened to be a very severe winter, which made postal 
communication difficult. Besides, in those days people 
neither wrote nor expected letters very often. During 


168 


A Noble Life. 


the three months that Lord Cairnforth remained in Edin« 
burg he only received two epistles from Mr. Cardross, 
and those were in prolix and Johnsonian style, on liter- 
ary topics, and concerning the great and learned, with 
whom the poor learned country minister had all his life 
longed to mix, and had never been able. 

Helen, who had scarcely penned a dozen letters in her 
life, wrote to him once only, in reply to one of his, telling 
him she was doing every thing as she thought he would 
best like; that Captain Bruce had assisted her and her 
father in many ways, so far as his health allowed, but he 
was very delicate still, and talked of going abroad, to the 
south of Prance probably, as soon as possible. The cap- 
tain himself never wrote one single line. 

At first the earl was a little surprised at this: how- 
ever, it was not his habit easily to take offense at his 
friends. He was quite without that morbid self-esteem 
which is always imagining affronts or injuries. If peo- 
ple liked him, he was glad ; if they showed it, he believed 
them, and rested in their affection with the simple faith 
of a child. But if they seemed to neglect him, he still 
was ready to conclude the slight was accidental, and he 
rarely grieved over it. Mere acquaintances had not the 
power to touch his heart. And this gentle heart which, 
liking many, loved but few, none whom he loved ever 
could really offend. He 

11 Grappled them to his soul with hooks of steel,’* 

and believed in them to the last extremity of faith that 
was possible. 

So, whether Captain Bruce came under the latter cate- 


169 


A Noble Life . 

gory or the former, his conduct was passed over, waiting 
for future explanation when Lord Cairnforth returned 
home, as now, every day, he was wearying to do. 

“ But I will be back again in pleasant Edinburg next 
winter,” said he to one of his new friends, who had helped 
to make his stay pleasant, and was sorely regretting his 
departure. “ And I shall bring with me some very old 
friends of mine, who will enjoy it as much as I shall my- 
self.” 

And he planned, and even made preliminary arrange- 
ments for a house to be taken, and an establishment 
formed, where the minister, Helen, and, indeed, all the 
Cardross family, if they chose, might find a hospitable 
home for the ensuing winter season. 

“And how they will like it!” said he, in talking it 
over with Malcolm one day. “How the minister will 
bury himself in old libraries, and Miss Cardross will ad- 
mire the grand shops and the beautiful views. And how 
the boys will go skating on Dunsappie Loch, and golfing 
over Bruntsfield Links. Oh, we’ll make them all so hap- 
py !” added he, with pleasure shining in those contented 
eyes, which drew half their light from the joy that they 
saw, and caused to shine in the eyes around him. 

It was after many days of fatiguing travel that Loi^ 
Cairnforth reached the ferry opposite Cairnforth. 

There the Castle stood, just as he had left it, its white 
front gleaming against the black woods, then yellow and 
brown with autumn, but now only black, or with a faint 
limber shadow running through them, preparatory to the 
green of spring. Between lay the beautiful loch, looking 
ten times more beautiful than ever to eyes which had not 


170 


A Noble Life. 

seen it for many long months. How it danced and dim- 
pled, as it had done before the squall in which the earl’s 
father was drowned, and as it would do many a time 
again, after the fashion of these lovely, deceitful lochs, 
and of many other things in this world. 

“ Oh, Malcolm, it’s good to be at home !” said the earl, 
as he gazed fondly at his white castle walls, at the ivy- 
covered kirk, and the gable end of the Manse. He had 
been happy in Edinburg, but it was far sweeter to come 
to the dear old friends that loved him. He seemed as if 
he had never before felt how dear they were, and how 
indispensable to his happiness. 

“You are quite sure, Malcolm, that nobody knows we 
are coming? I wished to go down at once to the Manse, 
and surprise them all.” 

“Ye’ll easy do that, my lord, for there’s naebody in 
sight but Sandy the ferryman, wha little kens it’s the 
earl himsel he’s keepit waiting sae lang.” 

“ And how’s a’ wi’ ye, Sandy ?” said Lord Cairnforth, 
cheerily, when the old man was rowing him across. “All 
well at home — at the Castle, the Manse, and the clachan?” 

“ Ou ay, my lord. Except maybe the minister. He’s 
no weel. He’s missing Miss Helen sair.” 

“Missing Miss Helen!” echoed the earl, turning pale. 

“ Ay, my lord. She gaed awa — it’s just twa days sin 
syne. She was sair vexed to leave Cairnforth and the 
minister.” 

“Leave her father?” 

“A man maun leave father and mither, and cleave 
unto his wife — the Scripture says it. And a woman 
maun just do the like for her man, ye ken. Miss Helen’s 


A Noble Life. 171 

awa to France, or some sic place, wi’ her husband, Captain 
Bruce.” 

The earl was sitting in the stern of the ferry-boat alone, 
no one being near him but Sandy, and Malcolm, who had 
taken the second oar. To old Sandy’s communication he 
replied not a word — asked not a single question more — 
and was lifted out at the end of the five-minutes’ passage 
just as usual. But the two men, though they also said 
nothing, remembered the expression of his face to their 
dying day. 

“ Take me home, Malcolm ; I will go to the Manse an- 
other time. Carry me in your arms — the quickest way.” 

Malcolm lifted his master, and carried him, just as in 
the days when the earl was a child, through the pleasant 
woods of Cairnforth, up to the Castle door. 

Nobody had expected them, and there was nothing 
readjr. 

“ It’s no matter — no matter,” feebly said the earl, and 
allowed himself to be placed in an arm-chair by the fire 
in the housekeeper’s room. There he sat passive. 

“Will I bring the minister?” whispered Malcolm, re- 
spectfully. “Maybe ye wad like to see him, my lord.” 

“No, no.” 

“His lordship’s no weel pleased,” said the housekeeper 
to Mrs. Campbell, when the earl leant his head back, and 
seemed to be sleeping. “Is it about the captain’s mar- 
riage? Did he no ken ?” 

“ Ne’er a word o’t.” 

“ That was great lack o’ respect on the part o’ Captain 
Bruce, and he sic a pleasant young man ; and Helen, toa 
Miss Helen tauld me her ain sel that the earl was greatly 


172 


A Noble Life . 


set upon her marriage, for the captain gaed to Edinburg 
just to tell him o’t. And he wrote her word that his 
lordship wished him no to bide a single day, but to mar- 
ry Miss Helen and tak her awa’. She’d never hae done 
it, in my opinion, but for that. For the captain was at 
her ilka day an a’ day lang, looking like a ghaist, and 
tellin’ her he couldna live without her — and she’s a ten- 
der heart, Miss Helen — and she was sae awfu’ vexed 
for him, ye ken. For, sure, Malcolm, the captain did 
seem almost like deein’.” 

“ Deein ’ ! ” cried Malcolm, contemptuously, and then 
stopped. For while they were talking the earl’s eyes 
had opened wide, and fixed with a strange, sad, terrified 
look upon vacancy. 

He remembered it all now — the last night he had 
spent at Cairnforth with his cousin — the conversation 
which passed between them — the questions asked, which, 
from his not answering, might have enabled the captain 
to guess at the probable disposal of his property. He 
could come to no other conclusion than that Captain 
Bruce had married Helen with the same motive which 
must have induced his appearance at the castle, and his 
eager and successful efforts to ingratiate himself there — 
namely, money ; that the fortune which he had himself 
missed might accrue to him through his union with Lord 
Cairnforth’s heiress. 

How had he possibly accomplished this? How had 
he succeeded in making good, innocent, simple Helen 
love him? for that she would never have married with- 
out love the earl well knew. By what persuasions, en- 
treaties, or lies — the housekeeper’s story involved some 


17a 


A Noble Life . 

evident lies — he had attained his end, remained, and 
must ever remain, among the mysteries of the many 
mysterious marriages which take place every day. 

And it was all over. She was' married, and gone away. 
Doubtless the captain had taken his precautions to pre- 
vent any possible hinderance. That it was a safe mar- 
riage legally, even though so little was known of the 
bridegroom’s antecedent life, seemed more than probable 
— certain, seeing that the chief object he would have in 
this marriage was its legality, to assure himself thereby 
of the property which should fall to Helen in the event 
of the earl’s decease. That he loved Helen for herself, 
or was capable of loving her or any woman in the one 
noble, true way, the largest limit of charitable interpret- 
ation could hardly suppose possible. 

Still, she had loved him — she must have done so — 
with that strange, sudden idealization of love which some- 
times seizes upon a woman who has reached — more than 
reached — mature womanhood, and never experienced the 
passion. And she had married him, and gone away with 
him — left, for his sake, father, brothers, friends — her one 
special friend, who was now nothing to her — nothing ! 

Whatever emotions the earl felt — and it would be al- 
most sacrilegious to intrude upon them, or to venture on 
any idle speculation concerning them — one thing was 
clear; in losing Helen, the light of his eyes, the delight 
of his life was gone. 

He sat in his chair quite still, as indeed he always was, 
but now it was a deathlike quietness, without the least 
sign of that wonderful mobility of feature and cheerful- 
ness of voice and manner which made people so soon 


174 


A Noble Life. 


grow used to his infirmity — sat until his room was pres 
pared. Then he suffered himself to be carried to his 
bed, which, for the first time in his life, he refused to 
leave for several days. 

Not that he was ill — he declined any medical help, and 
declared that he was only “ weary, weary” — at which, aft- 
er his long journey, no one was surprised. He refused 
to see any body, even Mr. Cardross, and would suffer no 
one beside him but his old nurse, Mrs. Campbell, whom 
he seemed to cling to as when he was a little child. For 
hours she sat by his bed, watching him, but scarcely 
speaking a word; and for hours he lay, his eyes wide 
open, but with that blank expression in them which Mrs. 
Campbell had first noticed when he sat by the housekeep- 
er’s fire. 

“My bairn! my bairn!” was all she said — for she was 
a very simple woman — but she loved him. And, some- 
how, her love comforted him. “Ye maun live, ye maun 
live. Maybe they’ll need ye yet,” sobbed she, without 
explaining — perhaps without knowing — who “they” 
meant. But she knew enough of her “bairn” to know 
that if any thing would rouse him it was the thought of 
other folk. 

“ Do you think so, nurse ? Do you think I can be of 
any good to any creature in this world?” 

“ Ay, ye can, ye can, my lord — ye’d be awfully missed 
gin ye were to dee.” 

“ Then I’ll no dee” — faintly smiling, and using the fa- 
miliar speech of his childhood. “ Call Malcolm. I’ll try 
to rise. And, nurse, if you would have the carriage or- 
dered — the pony carriage — I will drive down to the 


175 


A Noble Life . 

Manse and see how Mr. Cardross is. He must be rather 
dull without his daughter.” 

The earl did not — and it was long before he did — call 
her by her name. But after that day he always spoke of 
her as usual to every body ; and from that hour he rose 
from his bed, and went about his customary work in his 
customary manner, taking up all his duties as if he had 
never left them, and as if nothing had ever happened to 
disturb the even tenor of his life — the strange, peaceful, 
and yet busy life led by the solitary master of Cairnfortk 




























































































































































































































































































































































































Chapter ttje Ctonify. 













































It happened that, both this day and the day following, 
Mr. Cardross was absent on one of his customary house* 
to-house visitings in remote corners of his parish. So 
the earl, before meeting Helen’s father, had time to hear 
from other sources all particulars about her marriage — at 
least all that were known to the little world of Cairn- 
forth. 

The minister himself had scarcely more to communi- 
cate, except the fact, of which he seemed perfectly cer- 
tain, that her absence would not exceed six months, when 
Captain Bruce had faithfully promised to come back and 
live upon his half pay in the little peninsula. Otherwise 
Mr. Cardross was confident his “dear lassie” would never 
have left her father for any man alive. 

It was a marriage, externally, both natural and suita- 
ble; the young couple being of equal age and circum- 
stances, and withal tolerably well acquainted with one an- 
other, for it appeared the captain had begun daily visits 
to the Manse from the very day of Lord Cairnforth’s de* 
parture. 

“And he always spoke so warmly of you, expressed 
such gratitude toward you, such admiration of you — I 
think it was that which won Helen’s heart. And when 
he did ask her to marry him, she would not accept him 


180 A Noble Life. 

for a good while, not till after he had seen you in Edin 
burg.” 

“Seen me in Edinburg!’’ repeated the earl, amazed, 
and then suddenly stopped himself. It was necessary for 
Helen’s sake, for every body’s sake, to be cautious over 
every word he said ; to arrive at full confirmation of his 
suspicions before he put into the poor father’s heart one 
doubt that Helen’s marriage was not as happy or as hon- 
orable as the minister evidently believed it to be. 

“ He told us you seemed so well,” continued Mr. Card- 
ross; “that you were in the very whirl of Edinburg so- 
ciety, and delighted in it ; that you had said to him that 
nothing could be more to your mind than this marriage, 
and that if it could be carried out without waiting for 
your return, which was so very uncertain, you would be 
all the happier. Was not that true ?” 

“ Ho,” said the earl. 

“You wish she had waited till your return?” 

“Yes.” 

The minister looked sorry ; but still he evidently had 
not the slightest suspicion that aught was amiss. 

“ You must forgive my girl,” said he. “ She meant no 
disrespect to her dear old friend; but messages are so 
easily misconstrued. And then, you see, a lover’s impa- 
tience must be considered. We must excuse Captain 
Bruce, I think. No wonder he was eager to get our 
Helen.” 

And the old man smiled rather sadly, and looked wist 
fully round the Manse parlor, whence the familiar pres- 
ence had gone, and yet seemed lingering still — in her 
flower-stand, her little table, her work-basket; for Mr 


181 


A Noble Life, 

Cardross would not have a single article moved. “ Sha 
will like to see them all when she comes back again,” 
said he. 

“And you — were you quite satisfied with the mar* 
riage?” asked the earl, making his question and the tone 
of it as commonplace and cautious as he could. 

“ Why not ? Helen loved him, and I loved Helen. 
Besides, my own married life was so happy ; God forbid 
I should grudge any happiness to my children. I knew 
nothing but good of the lad ; and you liked him too ; 
Helen told me you had specially charged her, if ever she 
had an opportunity, to be kind to him.” 

Lord Cairnforth almost groaned. 

“ Captain Bruce declared you must have said it be- 
cause you knew of his attachment, which he had not had 
courage to express before, but had rather appeared to 
slight her, to hide his real feelings, until he was assured 
of your consent.” 

The earl listened, utterly struck dumb. The lies were 
so plausible, so systematic, so ingeniously fitted together, 
that he could almost have deluded himself into suppos- 
ing them truth. No wonder, then, that they had deluded 
simple Helen, and her even simpler and more unworldly 
father. 

And now the cruel question presented itself, how fa! 
the father was to be undeceived ? 

The earl was, both by nature and circumstances, a re 
served character ; that is, he did not believe in the duty 
of every body to tell out every thing. Helen often ar- 
gued with him, and even laughed at him, for this ; but he 
only smiled silently, and held to his own opinion, taughl 


182 


A Noble Life. 

by experience. He knew well that her life — her freq 
open, happy life, was not like his life, and never could be. 
She had yet to learn that bitter but salutary self-restraint, 
which, if it has to suffer, often for others’ sake as well as 
for its own, prefers to suffer alone. 

But Lord Cairnforth had learned this to the full 
Dtherwise, as he sat in the Manse parlor, listening pa- 
tiently to Helen’s father, and in the newness and sudden- 
ness of her loss, and the strong delusion of his own fond 
fancy, imagining every minute he heard her step on the 
stair and her voice in the hall, he must have utterly bro- 
ken down. 

He did not do so. He maintained his righteous con 
cealment, his noble deceit — if that was deceit which con- 
sisted only in silence — to the very last; spending the 
whole evening with Mr. Cardross, and quitting him with- 
out having betrayed a word of what he dreaded — what 
he was almost sure of. 

Though the marriage might be, and no doubt was, a 
perfectly legal and creditable marriage in the eye of the 
world, still, in the eyes of honest men, it would be deemed 
altogether unworthy and unfortunate, and he knew the 
minister would think it so. How could he tell the poor 
old father, who had so generously given up his only 
daughter for the one simple reason — sufficient reason for 
any righteous marriage — “ Helen loved him,” that his 
new son-in-law was proved by proof irresistible to be a 
deliberate liar, a selfish, scheming, mercenary knave ? 

So, under this heavy responsibility, Lord Cairnforth 
decided to do what, in minor matters, he had often no- 
ticed Helen do toward her gentle and easily-wounded fa* 


183 


A Noble Life . 

ther — to lay upon him no burdens greater than he could 
bear, but to bear them herself for him. And in this in- 
stance the earl’s only means of so doing, for the present 
at least, was by taking refuge in that last haven of wound- 
ed love and cruel suffering — silence. 

The earl determined to maintain a silence unbroken as 
the grave regarding all the past, and his own relations 
with Captain Bruce — that is, until he saw the necessity 
for doing otherwise. 

One thing, however, smote his heart with a sore pang, 
which, after a week or so, he could not entirely conceal 
from Mr. Cardross. Had Helen left him — him, her 
friend from childhood — no message, no letter ? Had her 
happy love so completely blotted out old ties that she 
could go away without one word of farewell to him ? 

The minister thought not. He was sure she had writ- 
ten; she had said she should, the night before her mar- 
riage, and he had heard her moving about in her room, 
and even sobbing, he fancied, long after the house was 
gone to rest. Nay, he felt sure he had seen her on her 
wedding morning give a letter to Captain Bruce, saying 
“it was to be posted to Edinburg.” 

“ Where, you know, we all believed you then were, 
and would remain for some time. Otherwise T am sure 
my child would have waited, that you might have been 
present at her marriage. And to think you should have 
come back the very next day ! She will be so sorry !” 

“Do you think so?” said the earl, sadly, and said no 
more. 

But, on his return to the Castle, he saw lying on his 
study-table a letter, in the round, firm, rather boyish 


184 A Noble Life. 

hand, familiar to him as that of his faithful amanuensis 
of many years. 

“ It’s surely frae Miss Helen — Mrs. Bruce that is,” said 
Malcolm, lifting it. “But folk in love are less mindfu’ 
than ordinar. She’s directed it to Charlotte Square, 
Edinburg, and then carried it up to London wi’ hersel’, 
and some other body, the captain, I think, has redirected 
it to Cairnforth Castle.” 

“No remarks, Malcolm,” interrupted the earl, with un- 
wonted sharpness. “ Break the seal, and lay the letter 
so that I can read it. Then you may go.” 

But, when his servant had gone, he closed his eyes in 
utter hopelessness of dejection, for he saw how complete- 
ly Helen had been deceived. 

Her letter ran thus — her poor, innocent letter — dated 
ever so long ago — indeed, the time when she had told 
her father she should write — the night before her mar- 
riage-day : 

“ My dear Friend, — I am very busy, but have striv- 
en hard to find an hour in which to write to you, for I 
do not think people forget their friends because they 
have gotten other people to be mindful of too. I think 
a good and happy love only makes other loves feel closer 
and dearer. I am sure I have been greeting like a bairn, 
twenty times a day, ever since I knew I was to be mar- 
ried, whenever I called to mind you and my dear father. 
You will be very good to him while I am away? but I 
need not ask you that. Six months, he says — I mean 
Captain Bruce — will, according to the Edinburg doctor’s 
advice, set up his health entirely, if he travels about in 


185 


A Noble Life. 

a warm climate ; and, therefore, by June, your birthday, 
we are sure to be back in dear old Cairnforth, to live 
there for the rest of our days, for he declares he likes no 
other place half so well. 

“ I am right to go with him for these six months — am 
I not? But I need not ask ; you sent me word so your- 
self. He had nobody to take care of him — nobody in 
the world but me. His sisters are gay, lively girls, he 
says, and he has been so long abroad that they are ah 
most strangers. He tells me I might as well send him 
away to die at once, unless I went with him as his wife. 
So I go. 

“ I hope he will come home quite strong and well, and 
able to begin building our cottage on that wee bit of 
ground on the hill-side above Cairnforth which you have 
promised to give to him. I am inexpressibly happy 
about it. We shall all live so cheerily together — and 
meet every day — the Castle, the Manse, and the Cottage. 
When I think of that, and of my coming back, I am al- 
most comforted for this sad going away — leaving my 
dear father, and the boys, and you. 

“ Papa has been so good to me, you do not know. I 
shall never forget it — nor will Ernest. Ernest thought 
he would stand in the way of our marriage, but he did 
not. He said I must choose for myself, as he had done 
when he married my dearest mother ; that I had been a 
good girl to him, and a good daughter would make a 
good wife ; also that a good wife would not cease to be 
a good daughter because she was married — especially 
living close at hand, as we shall always live: Ernest has 
promised it 


186 


A Noble Life. 


“ Thus, you see, nobody I love will lose me at all, noi 
shall I forget them : I should hate myself if it were pos- 
sible. I shall be none the less a daughter to my father 
— none the less a friend to you. I will never, never for- 
get you, my dear!” (here the writing became blurred, as 
if large drops had fallen on the paper while she vrrote.) 
“ It is twelve o’clock, and I must bid you good*night — - 
and God bless you ever and ever! The last time I sign 
my dear old name (except once) is thus to you. 

“ Your faithful and loving friend, 

“Helen Cardross.” 

Thus she had written, and thus he sat and read — these 
two, who had been and were so very dear to one another. 
Perhaps the good angels, who watch over human lives 
and human destinies, might have looked with pity upon 
both. 

As for Helen’s father, and Helen herself too, if (as 
some severe judges may say) they erred in suffering 
themselves to be thus easily deceived — in believing a 
man upon little more than his own testimony, and in 
loving him as bad men are sometimes loved, under a 
strong delusion, by even good women, surely the errors 
of unworldliness, unselfishness, and that large charity 
which “thinketh no evil” are not so common in this 
world as to be quite unpardonable. Better, tenfold, to 
be sinned against than sinning. 

“Better trust all, and be deceived, 

And weep that trust and that deceiving, 

Than doubt one heart which, if believed, 

JIad bless’d one’s life with true Sieving.” 


187 


A Noble Life. 

Lord Cairnforth did not think this at the time, but he 
learned to do so afterward. He learned, when time 
brought round its divine amende , neither to reproach 
himself so bitterly, nor to blame others ; and he knew it 
was better to accept any sad earthly lot, any cruelty, de- 
ceit, or wrong inflicted by others, than to have been him- 
self the evil-doer, or to have hardened his heart against 
any living soul by acts of causeless suspicion or deliber- 
ate injustice. 

Meanwhile, the marriage was accomplished. All that 
Helen’s fondest friend could do was to sit and watch the 
event of things, as the earl determined to watch — silent- 
ly, but with a vigilance that never slept. Not passively 
neither. He took immediate steps, by means which his 
large fortune and now wide connection easily enabled 
him to employ, to find out exactly the position of Helen’s 
husband, both his present circumstances, and, so far as 
was possible, his antecedents, at home or abroad. For, 
after the discovery of so many atrocious, deliberate lies, 
every fact that Captain Bruce had stated concerning him- 
self remained open to doubt. 

However, the lies were apparently that sort of false- 
hood which springs from a brilliant imagination, a lax 
conscience, and a ready tongue — prone to say whatever 
comes easiest and uppermost. Also, because probably 
following the not uncommon Jesuitical doctrine that the 
end justifies the means, he had, for whatever reason he 
best knew, determined to marry Helen Cardross, and 
took his own measures accordingly. 

The main facts of his self-told history turned out to be 
correct. He was certainly the identical Ernest Henry 


188 


A Noble Life . 

Bruce, only surviving son of Colonel Bruce, and had un 
doubtedly been in India, a captain in the Company’s 
service. His medals were veritable — won by creditable 
bravery. Ho absolute moral turpitude could be discov- 
ered concerning him — only a careless, reckless life ; an 
utter indifference to debt ; and a convenient readiness to 
live upon other people’s money rather than earn his own 
— qualities not so rare, or so sharply judged in the world 
at large, as they were likely to be by the little world of 
innocent, honest Cairnforth. 

And yet he was young — he had married a good wife 
— he might mend. At present, plain and indisputable, 
his character stood — good-natured, kindly — perhaps not 
even unlovable — but destitute of the very foundations 
of all that constitutes worth in a man — or woman either 
* — truthfulness, independence, honor, honesty. And he 
was Helen’s husband — Helen, the true and the good ; 
the poor minister’s daughter, who had been brought up 
to think that it was better to starve upon porridge and 
salt than to owe any one a halfpenny ! What sort of s 
marriage could it possibly turn out to be ? 

To this question, which Lord Cairnforth asked himself 
continually, in an agony of doubt, no answer came — no 
clew whatsoever, though, from even the first week, Hel- 
en’s letters reached the Manse as regularly as clock work* 
But they were mere outside letters — very sweet and lov- 
ing-telling her father every thing that could interest 
him about foreign places, persons, and things ; only of 
herself and her own feelings saying almost nothing. It 
was unlikely she should : the earl laid this comfort to his 
soul twenty times a day. She was married now; she 


A Noble Life. 


189 


Could not be expected to be frank as in her girlhood; 
still, this total silence, so unnatural to her candid disposi- 
tion, alarmed him. 

But there was no resource — no help. Into that secret 
chamber which her own hand thus barred, no ot*her hand 
could presume to break. No one could say — ought to 
say to a wife, “Your husband is a scoundrel ” 

And besides (to this hope Lord Cairnforth clung with 
a desperation heroic as bitter), Captain Bruce might not 
be an irredeemable scoundrel ; and he might — there was 
still a chance — have married Helen not altogether from 
interested motives. She was so lovable that he might 
have loved her, or have grown to love her, even though 
he had slighted her at first. 

“He must have loved her — he could not help it,” 
groaned the earl, inwardly, when the minister and others 
stabbed him from time to time with little episodes of the 
courting days — the captain’s devotedness to Helen, and 
Helen’s surprised* fond delight at being so much “ made 
of” by the first lover who had ever wooed her, and a 
lover whom externally any girl would have been proud 
of. And then the agonized cry of another faithful heart 
went up to heaven — “God grant he may love her; that 
she may be happy — anyhow — any where !” 

But all this while, with the almost morbid prevision of 
his character, Lord Cairnforth took every precaution that 
Helen should be guarded, as much as was possible, in 
case there should befall her that terrible calamity, the 
worst that can happen to a woman — of being compelled 
to treat the husband and father, the natural protector, 
helper, and guide of herself and her children, as not only 
her own, but their natural enemy. 


190 


A Noble Life . 

The earl did not cancel Helen’s name from his will ; he 
let every thing stand as before her marriage ; but he took 
the most sedulous care to secure her fortune unalienably 
to herself and her offspring. This, because, if Captain 
Bruce were honest, such precaution could not affect him 
in the least: man and wife are one flesh — settlements 
were a mere form, which love would only smile at, and 
at which any honorable man must be rather glad of than 
otherwise. But if her husband were dishonorable, Helen 
was made safe, so far as worldly matters went — safe, ex- 
cept for the grief from which, alas ! no human friend can 
protect another — a broken heart ! 

Was her heart broken or breaking? 

The earl could not tell, nor even guess. She left them 
at home not a loophole whereby to form a conjecture. 
Her letters came regularly, from January until May, 
dated from all sorts of German towns, chiefly gambling 
towns ; but the innocent dwellers at Cairnforth (save the 
earl) did not know this fact. They were sweet, fond let- 
ters as ever — mindful, with a pathetic minuteness, of 
every body and every thing at the dear old home; but 
not a complaint was breathed — not a murmur of regret 
concerning her marriage. She wrote very little of her 
husband ; gradually, Lord Cairnforth fancied, less and 
less. They had not been to the south of France, as was 
ordered by the physicians, and intended. He preferred, 
she said, these German towns, where he met his own 
family — his father and sisters. Of these, as even the 
minister himself at length noticed with surprise, Helen 
gave no description, favorable or otherwise ; indeed, did 
not say of her husband’s kindred, beyond the bare fact 
that she was living with them, one single word. 




A Noble Life. 


191 


Eagerly the earl scanned her letters — those long letters, 
which Mr. Cardross brought up immediately to the Castle, 
and then circulated their contents round the whole parish 
with the utmost glee and pride ; for the whole parish was 
in its turn dying to hear news of “Miss Helen.” Still, 
nothing could be discovered of her real life and feelings. 
And at last her friend’s fever of uneasiness calmed down 
a little; he contented himself with still keeping a con- 
stant watch over all her movements — speaking to no one, 
trusting no one, except so far as he was obliged to trust 
the old clerk who was once sent down by Mr. Menteith, 
and who had now come to end his days at Cairnforth, in 
the position of the earl’s private secretary — as faithful 
and fond as a dog, and as safely silent. 

So wore the time away, as it wears on with all of us, 
through joy and sorrow, absence or presence, with cheer- 
ful fullness or aching emptiness of heart. It brought 
spring back, and summer — the sunshine to the hills, and 
the leaves, and flowers, and birds to the woods; it brought 
the earl’s birthday — kept festively as ever by his people, 
who loved him better every year ; but it did not bring 
Helen home to Cairnforth. 







Cjjnjrttr tfje tftnrifijj. 




Life, when we calmly analyze it, is made up to us all 
alike of three simple elements — joy, sorrow, and work. 
Some of us get tolerably equal proportions of each of 
these ; some unequal — or we fancy so ; but, in reality, as 
the ancient sage says truly, “ the same things come alike 
to all” 

The Earl of Cairnforth, in his imperfect fragment of a 
life, had had little enough of enjoyment; but he knew 
how to endure better than most people. He had, how- 
ever, still to learn that existence is not wholly endurance; 
that a complete human life must have in it not only sub- 
mission, but resistance; the fighting against evil and in 
defense of good ; the struggle with divine help to over- 
come evil with good ; and finally the determination not 
to sit down tamely to misery, but to strive after happi- 
ness — lawful happiness, both for ourselves and others. 
In short, not only passively to accept joy or grief, but to 
take means to secure the one and escape the other; to 
“ work out our own salvation” for each day, as we are 
told to do it for an eternity, though with the same divine 
limitation — humbling to all pride, and yet encouraging to 
ceaseless effort — “ for it is God that worketh in us both 
to will and to do of His good pleasure.” 

That self-absorption of loss, which follows all great an- 
guish ; that shrinking up unto one’s self, which is the 


196 


A Noble Life. 


first and most natural instinct of a creature smitten with 
a sorrow not unmingled with cruel wrong, is, with most 
high natures, only temporary. By-and-by comes the 
merciful touch which says to the lame, “Arise and 
walk;” to the sick, “Take up thy bed and go into thine 
house.” And the whisper of peace is, almost invariably, 
a whisper of labor and effort : there is not only some- 
thing to be suffered, but something to be done. 

With the earl this state was longer in corning, because 
the prior collapse did not come to him at once. The ex- 
citement of perpetual expectation — the preparing for 
some catastrophe, which he felt sure was to follow, and 
the incessant labor entailed by his wide inquiries, in 
which he had no confidant but Mr. Mearns, the clerk, 
and him he trusted as little as possible, lest any suspicion 
or disgrace should fall upon Helen’s husband — all this 
kept him in a state of unnatural activity and strength. 

But when the need for action died away; when Hel- 
en’s letters betrayed nothing ; and when, though she did 
not return, and while expressing most bitter regret, yet 
gave sufficiently valid reasons for not returning in her 
husband’s still delicate health — after June, Lord Cairn- 
forth fell into a condition, less of physical than mental 
sickness, which lasted a long time, and was very painful 
to himself, as well as to those that loved him. He was 
not ill, but his usual amount of strength — so small al- 
ways — became much reduced; neither was he exactly 
irritable — his sweet temper never could sink into irrita- 
bility; but he was, as Malcolm expressed it, “dour;” 
difficult to please; easily fretted about trifles; inclined 
to take sad and cynical views of things. 


A Noble Life. 


197 


This might h°ve been increased by certain discover- 
ies, which, during the summer, when he came to look 
into his affairs, Lord Cairnforth made. He found that 
money which he had intrusted to Captain Bruce for va- 
rious purposes had been appropriated, or misappropria- 
ted, in different ways — conduct scarcely exposing the 
young man to legal investigation, and capable of being 
explained away as “carelessness” — “unpunctuality in 
money matters” — and so on, but conduct of which no 
strictly upright, honorable person would ever have been 
guilty. This fact accounted for another — the captain’s 
having expressed ardent gratitude for a sum which he 
said the earl had given him for his journey and marriage 
expenses, which, though Mr. Cardross’s independent spirit 
rather revolted from the gift, at least satisfied him about 
Helen’s comfort during her temporary absence. And 
once more, for Helen’s sake, the earl kept silence. But 
he felt as if every good and tender impulse of his nature 
were hardening into stone. 

Hardened at the core Lord Cairnforth could never be ; 
no man can whose heart has once admitted into its deep- 
est sanctuary the love of One who, when all human loves 
fail, still whispers, “We will come in unto him, and 
make our abode with him” — ay, be it the forlornest bod- 
ily tabernacle in which immortal soul ever dwelt. But 
there came an outer crust of hardness over his nature 
which was years before it quite melted away. Common 
observers might not perceive it — Mr. Cardross even did 
not ; still it was there. 

The thing was inevitable. Right or wrong, deservedly 
or undeservedly, most of us have at different crises of 


198 


A Noble Life . 


our lives known this feeling — the bitter sense of being 
wronged ; of having opened one’s heart to the sunshine, 
and had it all blighted and blackened with frost; of hav- 
ing laid one’s self down in a passion of devotedness for 
beloved feet to walk upon, and been trampled upon, and 
beaten down to the dust. And as months slipped by, 
and there came no Helen, this feeling, even against his 
will and his conscience, grew very much upon Lord 
Cairnforth. In time it might have changed him to a 
bitter, suspicious, disappointed cynic, had there not also 
come to him, with strong conviction, one truth — a truth 
preached on the shores of Galilee eighteen hundred years 
ago — the only truth that can save the wronged heart 
from breaking — that he who gives away only a cup of 
cold water shall in no wise lose his reward. Still, the 
reward is not temporal, and is rarely reward in kind. 
He — and He alone — to whom the debt is due, repays it; 
not in our, but in his own way. One only consolation 
remains to the sufferers from ingratitude, but that one is 
all-sufficing: “ Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the 
least of these little ones, ye have done it unto Me.” 

All autumn, winter, and during another spring and 
summer, Helen’s letters — most fond, regular, and (to her 
father) satisfactory letters — contained incessant and eager 
hopes of return, which were never fulfilled. And gradu- 
ally she ceased to give any reason for their non-fulfill- 
ment, simply saying, with a sad brevity of silence, which 
one, at least, of her friends knew how to comprehend and 
appreciate, that her coming home at present was “im- 
possible.” 

11 It’s very true,” said the good minister, disappointed 


199 


A Noble Life. 

as he was: “ a man must cleave to his wife, and a wom- 
an to her husband. I suppose the captain finds himself 
better in warm countries — he always said so. My bairn 
will come back when she can — I know she will. And 
the boys are very good — specially Duncan.” 

For Mr. Cardross had now, he thought, discovered 
germs of ability in his youngest boy, and was concentrat- 
ing all his powers in educating him for college and the 
ministry. This, and his growing absorption in his books, 
reconciled him more than might have been expected to 
his daughter’s absence; or else the inevitable necessity 
of things, which, as we advance in years, becomes so 
strange and consoling an influence over us, was working 
slowly upon the good old minister. He did not seem 
heart-broken or even heart-wounded — he did his parish 
work with unfailing diligence ; but as, Sunday after Sun- 
day, he passed from the Manse garden through the kirk- 
yard, where, green and moss-covered now, was the one 
white stone which bore the name of “ Helen Lindsay, 
wife of the Eeverend Alexander Cardross,” he was often 
seen to glance at it less sorrowfully than smilingly. Year 
by year, the world and its cares were lessening and slip- 
ping away from him, as they had long since slipped from 
her who once shared them all. She now waited for him 
in that eternal reunion which the marriage union teaches, 
as perhaps none other can, to realize as a living fact and 
natural necessity. 

But it was different with the earl. Sometimes, in an 
agony of bitterness, he caught himself blaming her — 
Helen — whom her old father never blamed; wondering 
how much she had found out of her husband’s conduct 


200 


A Noble Life . 

and character; speculating whether it was possible to 
touch pitch and not be defiled ; and whether the wife of 
Captain Bruce had become in any way different from, 
and inferior to, innocent Helen Cardross. 

Lord Cairnforth had never answered her letter — he 
could not, without being a complete hypocrite ; and she 
had not written again. He did not expect it — scarcely 
wished it — and yet the blank was sore. More and more 
he withdrew from all but necessary associations, shutting 
himself up in the Castle for weeks together — neither 
reading, nor talking much to any one, but sitting quite 
still — he always sat quite still — by the fireside in his lit- 
tle chair. He felt creeping over him that deadness to 
external things which makes pain itself seem compara- 
tively almost sweet. Once he was heard to say, looking 
wistfully at Mrs. Campbell, who had been telling him, 
with many tears, of a “ freend o’ hers” who had just died 
down at the clachan, “Nurse, I wish I could greet like 
you.” 

The first thing which broke up in his heart this bitter, 
blighting frost was, as so often happens, the sharp-edged 
blow of a new trouble. 

He had not been at the Manse for two or three weeks, 
and had not even heard of the family for several days, 
when, looking up from his seat in church, he was startled 
by the apparition of an unfamiliar face in the pulpit — a 
voluble, flowery-tongued, foolish young assistant, evident- 
ly caught haphazard to fill the place which Mr. Cardross, 
during a long term of years, had never vacated, except 
at communion seasons. It gave his faithful friend and 
pupil a sensation almost of pain to see any new figure 


A Noble Life. 


201 


there, and not the dear old minister’s, with his long white 
hair, his earnest manner, and his simple, short sermon. 
Shorter and simpler the older he grew, till he often de- 
clared he should end by preaching like the beloved apos- 
tle John, who, tradition says, in his latter days, did noth- 
ing but repeat, over and over again, to all around him, his 
one exhortation — he, the disciple whom Jesus loved — 
“Little children, love one another.” 

On inquiry after service, the earl found that Mr. Card- 
ross had been ailing all week, and had had on Saturday 
to procure in haste this substitute. But, on going to the 
Manse, the earl found him much as usual, only complain- 
ing of a numbness in his arm. 

“And,” he said, with a composure very different from 
his usual nervousness about the slightest ailment, “now 
I remember, my mother died of paralysis. I wish Helen 
would come home.” 

“ Shall she be sent for?” suggested Lord Cairnforth. 

“ Oh no — not the least necessity. Besides, she says 
she is coming.” 

“ She has long said that.” 

“But now she is determined to make the strongest ef- 
fort to be with us at the New Year. Read her letter — it 
came yesterday ; a week later than usual. I should have 
sent it up to the Castle, for it troubled me a little, espe- 
cially the postscript; can you make it out? part of it is 
under the seal. It is in answer to what I told her of 
Duncan ; he was always her pet, you know. How she 
used to carry him about the garden, even when he grew 
quite a big boy ! Poor Helen !” 

While the minister went on talking, feebly and wan* 


202 


A Noble Life . 

deringly, in a way that at another time would have struck 
the earl as something new and rather alarming, Lord 
Cairnforth eagerly read the letter. It ended thus: 

“ Tell Dunnie I am awfully glad he is to be a minister. 
I hope all my brothers will settle down in dear old Scot- 
land, work hard, and pay their way like honest men. 
And bid them, as soon as ever they can, to marry honest 
women — good, loving Scotch lassies — no fremd folk. 
Tell them never to fear for 1 poortith cauld,’ as Mr. Burns 
wrote about ; it’s easy to bear, when it’s honest poverty. 
I would rather see my five brothers living on porridge 
and milk — wives, and weans, and all — than see them like 
these foreigners, counts, barons, and princes though they 
be. Father, I hate them all. And I mind always the 
way I was brought up, and that I was once a minister’s 
daughter in dear and bonnie Cairnforth.” 

“What can she mean by that?” said Mr. Cardross, 
watching anxiously the earl’s countenance as he read. 

“ I suppose, what Helen always means, exactly what 
she says.” 

“ That is true. You know we used always to say 
Helen could hold her tongue, though it wasn’t easy to 
her, the dear lassie ; but she could not say what was not 
the fact, nor even give the impression of it. Therefore, 
if she were unhappy, she would have told me?” 

This was meant as a question, but it gained no answer. 

“ Surely,” entreated the father, anxiously, “ surely you 
do not think the lassie is unhappy ?” 

“ This is not a very happy world,” said the earl, sadly. 
“ But I do believe that if any thing had been seriously 
wrong with her Helen would have told us.” 


A Noble Life. 


203 


He spoke his real belief. But he did not speak of a 
dread far deeper, which had sometimes occurred to him, 
but which that sad and even bitter postscript now re* 
moved, that circumstances could change character, and 
that Helen Cardross and Helen Bruce were two different 
women. 

As he went home, having arranged to come daily ev- 
ery forenoon to sit with the minister, and to read a little 
Greek with Duncan, lest the lad’s studies should be in- 
terrupted, he decided that, in her father’s state, which ap- 
peared to him the more serious the longer he considered 
it, it was right Helen should come home, and somebody, 
not Mr. Cardross, ought to urge it upon her. He de- 
termined to do this himself And, lest means should be 
wanting — though of this he had no reason to fear, his 
information from all quarters having always been that 
the Bruce family lived more than well — luxuriously — 
he resolved to offer a gift with which he had not before 
dared to think of insulting independent Helen — money. 

With difficulty and pains, not intrusting this secret to 
even his faithful secretary, he himself wrote a few lines, 
in his own feeble, shaky hand, telling her exactly how 
things were ; suggesting her coming home, and inclosing 
wherewithal to do it, from “ her affectionate old friend 
and cousin,” from whom she need not hesitate to accept 
any thing. But though he carefully, after long consid- 
eration, signed himself her “cousin,” he did not once 
name Captain Bruce. He could not. 

This done, he waited day after day, till every chance 
of Helen’s not having had time to reply was long over, 
and still no answer came. That the letter had been re- 


204 


A Noble Life . 

ceived was more than probable, almost certain. Every 
possible interpretation that common sense allowed Lord 
Cairnforth gave to her silence, and all failed. Then he 
let the question rest. To distrust her, Helen, his one pure 
image of perfection, was impossible. He felt it would 
have killed him — not his outer life, perhaps, but the life 
of his heart, his belief in human goodness. 

So he still waited, nor judged her either as daughter or 
friend, but contented himself with doing her apparently 
neglected duty for her — making himself an elder brother 
to Duncan, and a son to the minister, and never missing 
a day without spending some hours at the Manse. 

For almost the first time since her departure, Helen’s 
regular monthly letter did not arrive, and then the earl 
grew seriously alarmed. In the utmost perplexity, he 
was resolving in his own mind what next step to take — - 
how, and how much he ought to tell of his anxieties to 
her father — when all difficulties were solved in the sharp- 
est and yet easiest way by a letter from Helen herself — 
a letter so unlike Helen’s, so un-neat, blurred, and blot- 
ted, that at first he did not even recognize it as hers. 

“ To the Right Honorable the Earl of Cairnforth: 

“ My Lord, — I have only just found your letter. The 
money inclosed was not there. I conclude it had been 
used for our journey hither ; but it is gone, and I can not 
come to my dearest father. My husband is very ill, and 
my little baby only three weeks old. Tell my father 
this, and send me news of him soon. Help me, for I am 
almost beside myself with misery I 

“ Yours gratefully, Helen Bruce. 

* Street, Edinburg/’ 


A Noble Life . 


205 


Edinburg ! Then she was come home ! 

The earl had opened and read the letter with his sec- 
retary sitting by him. Yet, dull and not prone to notice 
things as the old man was, he was struck by an unusual 
cone of something very like exultation in his master’s 
voice as he said, 

“ Mr. Mearns, call Malcolm to me ; I must start for 
Edinburg immediately.” 

In the interval Lord Cairnforth thought rapidly over 
what was best to be done. To go at once to Helen, what- 
ever her misery was, appeared to him beyond question. 
To take Mr. Cardross in his present state, or the lad Dun- 
can, was not desirable : some people, good as they may 
be, are not the sort of people to be trusted in calamity. 
And Helen’s other brothers were out and away in the 
world, scattered all over Scotland, earning, diligently and 
hardly, their daily bread. 

There was evidently not a soul to go to her help ex- 
cept himself. Her brief and formal letter, breaking down 
into that piteous cry of “ help me,” seemed to come out 
of the very depths of despair. It pierced to the core of 
Lord Cairnforth’s heart ; and yet — and yet — he felt that 
strange sense of exultation and delight. 

Even Malcolm noticed this. 

“ Your lordship has gotten gude news,” said he. “Is 
it about Miss Helen ? She’s coming hame ?” 

“Yes. We must start for Edinburg at once, and we’ll 
bring her back with us.” He forgot for the moment the 
sick husband, the newborn baby — every thing but Helen 
herself and her being close at hand. “ It’s only forty- 
eight hours journey to Edinburg now. We will travel 


206 


A Noble Life . 


post; I am strong enough, Malcolm ; set about it quick- 
ly, for it must be done.” 

Malcolm knew his master too well to remonstrate. In 
truth, the whole household was so bewildered by this 
sudden exploit — for the wheels of life moved slowly 
enough ordinarily at Cairnforth — that before any body 
was quite aware what had happened, the earl and his two 
necessary attendants, Malcolm and Mr. Mearns — also Mrs. 
Campbell — Helen might want a woman with her — were 
traveling across country as fast as the only fast traveling 
of that era — relays of post-horses day and night — could 
carry them. 

Lord Cairnforth, after much thought, left Helen’s letter 
behind with Duncan Cardross, charging him to break the 
tidings gradually to the minister, and tell him that he 
himself was then traveling to Edinburg with all the speed 
that, in those days, money, and money alone, could pro- 
cure. Oh, how he felt the blessing of riches ! Now, 
whatever her circumstances were, or might have been 
once, misery, poverty, could never afflict Helen more. 
He was quite determined that from the time he brought 
them home, his cousin and his cousin’s wife should in- 
habit Cairnforth Castle ; that, whether Captain Bruce’s 
life proved to be long or short, worthy or unworthy, he 
should be borne with, and forgiven every thing — for Hel- 
en’s sake. 

All the journey — sleeping or waking, day or night — 
Lord Cairnforth arranged or dreamed over his plans, un- 
til at ten o’clock the second night he found himself driv- 
ing along the familiar Princes Street, with the grim Cas- 
tle rock standing dark against the moonlight ; while be- 


yond, on the opposite side of what was then a morass, 
but is now railways and gardens, rose tier upon tier, like 
a fairy palace, the glittering lights of the old town of 
Edinburg 














































































































































































































































































































































































Cjwjrtrr tjie Cjjirtatfi. 


The earl reached Edinburg late at night. Mrs. Camp- 
bell entreated him to go to bed, and not seek out the 
street where the Bruces lived till morning. 

“ For I ken the place weel,” said she, when she heard 
Lord Cairnforth inquiring for the address Helen had 
given. “ It’s ane o’ thae high lands in the New Town — 
a grand flat wi’ a fine ha’ door — and then ye gang up an’ 
up, till at the top flat ye find a bit nest like a bird’s — 
and the folk living there are as ill off as a bird in winter- 
time.” 

The earl, weary as he had been, raised his head at this, 
and spoke decisively, 

“ Tell Malcolm to fetch a coach. I will go there to- 
night.” 

“Eh! couldna ye bide till the morn? Ye’ll just kill 
yoursel,’ my lamb,” cried the affectionate woman, for- 
getting all her respect in her affection ; but Lord Cairn- 
forth understood it, and replied in the good old Scotch, 
which he always kept to warm his nurse’s heart, 

“Na, na, I’ll no dee yet. Keep your heart content; 
We’ll all soon be safe back at Cairnforth.” 

It seemed, in truth, as if an almost miraculous amount 
of endurance and energy had been given to that frail 
body for this hour of need. The earl’s dark eyes were 


212 


A Noble Life . 

gleaming with fight, and every tone of his voice was 
proud and manly, as the strong, manly soul, counteract- 
ing all physical infirmities, rose up for the protection of 
the one creature in all the world who to him had been 
most dear. 

“Yen’ll order apartments in the hotel, nurse. See 
that every thing is right and comfortable for Mrs. Bruce. 
I shall bring them back at once, if I can,” was his last 
word as he drove off*, alone with Malcolm : he wished to 
have no one with him who could possibly be done with- 
out. 

It was nearly midnight when they stood at the foot of 
the high stair — six stories high — and Captain Bruce, they 
learned, was inhabiting the topmost flat. Malcolm looked 
at the earl uneasily. 

“The top flat! Miss Helen canna be vera well aff, I 
doubt. Will I gang up and see, my lord?” 

“ No, I will go myself. Carry me, Malcolm.” 

And, in the old childish way, the big Highlander lift- 
ed his master up in his arms, and carried him, flight after 
flight, to the summit of the long dark stair. It narrowed 
up to a small door, very mean and shabby -looking, from 
the keyhole of which, when Malcolm hid his lantern, a 
light was seen to gleam. 

“ They’re no awa’ to their beds yet, my lord. Will I 
knock ?” 

Lord Cairnforth had no time to reply, if indeed he 
could have replied ; for Malcolm’s footsteps had been 
heard from within, and opening the door with an eager 
“Is that you, doctor?” there stood before them, in her 
very own likeness, Helen Cardross. 


A Noble Life . 


213 


At least a woman like enough to the former Helen to 
leave no doubt it was herself. But a casual acquaint- 
ance would never have recognized her. 

The face, once so round and rosy, was sharp and thin ; 
the cheek-bones stood out; the bright complexion was 
faded ; the masses of flaxen curls — her chief beauty — 
were all gone ; and the thin hair was drawn up close un- 
der a cap. Her dress, once the picture of neatness, was 
neat still, but her figure had become gaunt and coarse, 
and the shabby gown hung upon her in forlorn folds, as 
if put on carelessly by one who had neither time nor 
thought to give to appearances. 

She was evidently sitting up watching, and alone. 
The rooms which her door opened to view were only 
two, this topmost flat having been divided in half, and 
each half made into just “a but and a ben,” and furnish- 
ed in the meanest fashion of lodgings to let. 

“Is it the doctor?” she said again, shading her light 
and peering down the dark stair. 

“Helen!” 

She recognized at once the little figure in Malcolm’s 
arms. 

“ You — you ! And you have come to me— come your 
own self! Oh, thank God !” 

She leant against the doorway — not for weeping ; she 
looked like one who had wept till she could weep no 
more, but breathing hard in heavy breaths, like sobs. 

“ Set me down, Malcolm, somewhere — any where. 
Then go outside.” 

Malcolm obeyed, finding a broken arm-chair and set- 
tling his master therein. Then, as he himself afterward 


214 


A Noble Life . 

told the story, though not till many years after, when 
nothing he told about that dear master’s concerns could 
signify any more, he “ gaed awa’ doun and grat like a 
bairn.” 

Lord Cairnforth sat silent, waiting till Helen had re- 
covered herself — Helen, whom, however changed, he 
would have known among a thousand. And then, with 
his quick observation, he took in as much of her circum- 
stances as was betrayed by the aspect of the room, evi- 
dently kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom in one ; for at 
the far end, close to the door that opened into the second 
apartment, which seemed a mere closet, was one of those 
concealed beds so common in Scotland, and on it lay a 
figure which occasionally stirred, moaned, or coughed, 
but very feebly, and for the most part lay still — very 
still. 

Its face, placed straight on the pillow — and as the fire 
blazed up, the sharp profile being reflected in grotesque 
distinctness on the wall behind — was a man’s face, thin 
and ghastly, the skin tightly drawn over the features, as 
is seen in the last stage of consumption. 

Lord Cairnforth had never beheld death — not in any 
form. But he felt, by instinct, that he was looking upon 
it now, or the near approach to it, in the man who lay 
there, too rapidly passing into unconsciousness even to 
notice his presence — Helen’s husband, Captain Bruce. 

The dreadful fascination of the sight drew his attention 
even from Helen herself. He sat gazing at his cousin, 
the man who had deceived and wronged him, and not 
him only, but those dearer to him than himself— the man 
whom, a day or two ago, he had altogether hated and de* 


A Noble Life . 


215 


spised. He dared do neither now. A heavier hand than 
that of mortal j ustice was upon his enemy. Whatever 
Captain Bruce was, whatever he had been, he was now 
being taken away from all human judgment into the im- 
mediate presence of Him who is at once the Judge and 
the Pardoner of sinners. 

Awe-struck, the earl sat and watched the young man 
(for he could not be thirty yet), struck down thus in the 
prime of his days — carried away into the other world — 
while he himself, with his frail, flickering taper of a life, 
remained. Wherefore? At length, in a whisper, he 
called “Helen!” and she came and knelt beside the earl’s 
chair. 

“ He is fast going,” said she. 

“ I see that.” 

“ In an hour or two, the doctor said.” 

“ Then I will stay, if I may ?” 

“Oh yes.” 

Helen said it quite passively ; indeed, her whole ap- 
pearance as she moved about the room, and then took her 
seat by her husband’s bedside, indicated one who makes 
no effort either to express or to restrain grief — who has, 
in truth, suffered till she can suffer no more. 

The dying man was not so near death as the doctor 
had thought, for after a little he fell into what seemed a 
natural sleep. Helen leant her head against the wall and 
closed her eyes. But that instant was heard from the 
inner room a cry, the like of which Lord Cairnforth had 
never heard before — the sharp, waking cry of a very 
young infant. 

In a moment Helen started up — her whole expression 


216 


A Noble Life . 


changed ; and when, after a short disappearance, she re« 
entered the room with her child, who had dropped con- 
tentedly asleep again, nestling to her bosom, she was per- 
fectly transformed. No longer the plain, almost elderly 
woman ; she had in her poor worn face the look — which 
makes any face young, nay, lovely — the mother’s look. 
Fate had not been altogether cruel to her; it had given 
her a child. 

“Isn’t he a bonnie bairn?” she whispered, as once 
again she knelt down by Lord Cairnfortn’s chair, and 
brought the little face down so that he could see it and 
touch it. He did touch it with his feeble fingers — the 
small soft cheek — the first baby-cheek he had ever be- 
held. 

“It is a bonnie bairn, as you say; God bless it!” which, 
as she afterward told him, was the first blessing ever 
breathed over the child. “What is its name?” he asked 
by-and-by, seeing she expected more notice taken of it. 

“Alexander Cardross — after my father. My son is a 
born Scotsman too — an Edinburg laddie. We were 
coming home, as fast as we could, to Cairnforth. He” — 
glancing toward the bed — “ he wished it.” 

Thus much thought for her, then, the dying man had 
shown. He had been unwilling to leave his wife forlorn 
in a strange land. He had come “ as fast as he could,” 
that her child might be born and her husband die at 
Cairnforth — at least so the earl supposed, nor subsequent- 
ly found any reason to doubt. It was a good thing to 
hear then — good to remember afterward. 

For hours the earl sat in the broken chair, with Helen 
and her baby opposite, watching and waiting for the end. 


A Noble Life . 


217 


It did not come till near morning. Once during the 
night Captain Bruce opened his eyes and looked about 
him, but either his mind was confused, or — who knows? 
— made clearer by the approach of death, for he evinced 
no sign of surprise at the earl’s presence in the room. 
He only fixed upon him a long, searching, inquiring gaze, 
which seemed to compel an answer. 

Lord Cairnforth spoke : 

“ Cousin, I am come to take home with me your wife 
and child. Are you satisfied?” 

“Yes.” 

“I promise you they shall never want. I will take 
care of them always.” 

There was a faint assenting movement of the dying 
head, and then, just as Helen went out of the room with 
her baby, Captain Bruce followed her with his eyes, in 
which the earl thought was an expression almost ap- 
proaching tenderness. “Poor thing — poor thing I her 
long trouble is over.” 

These were the last words he ever said, for shortly 
afterward he again fell into a sleep, out of which he pass- 
ed quietly and without pain into sleep eternal. They 
looked at him, and he was still breathing; they looked 
at him a few minutes after, and he was, as Mr. Cardross 
would have expressed it, “ away” — far, far away — in His 
safe keeping with whom abide the souls of both the right- 
eous and the wicked, the living and the dead. 

Let Him judge him, for no one else ever did. No one 
ever spoke of him but as their dead can only be spoken 
f either to or by the widow and the fatherless. 
****** 


218 


A Noble Life . 


Without much difficulty — for, after her husband’s 
death, Helen’s strength suddenly collapsed, and she be- 
came perfectly passive in the earl’s hands and in those of 
Mrs. Campbell — Lord Cairnforth learned all he required 
about the circumstances of the Bruce family. 

They were absolutely penniless. Helen’s boy had been 
born only a day or two after their arrival at Edinburg. 
Her husband’s illness increased suddenly at the last, but 
he had not been quite incapacitated till she had gained a 
little strength, so as to be able to nurse him. But how 
she had done it — how then and for many months past 
she had contrived to keep body and soul together, to 
endure fatigue, privation, mental anguish, and physical 
weakness, was, according to good Mrs. Campbell, who 
heard and guessed a great deal more than she chose to 
tell, “just wonderfu’.” It could only be accounted for 
by Helen’s natural vigor of constitution, and by that pre- 
ternatural strength and courage which Nature supplies 
to even the saddest form of motherhood. 

And now her brief term of wifehood — she had yet not 
been married two years — was over forever, and Helen 
Bruce was left a mother only. It was easy to see that 
she would be one of those women who remain such — 
mothers, and nothing but mothers, to the end of their 
days. 

“ She’s ower young for me to say it o’ her,” observed 
Mrs. Campbell, in one of the long consultations that she 
and the earl held together concerning Helen, who was of 
necessity given over almost exclusively to the good wom- 
an’s charge; “but ye’ll see, my lord, she will look nae 
mair at any mortal man. She’ll just spend her days in 


219 


A Noble Life . 

tending that wean o’ hers — and a sweet bit thing it is, 
ye ken — by-and-by she’ll get blithe and bonnie again. 
She’ll be aye gentle and kind, and no dreary, but she’ll 
never marry. Puir Miss Helen! she’ll be ane o’ thae 
widows that the apostle tells o’ — that are ‘widows in- 
deed.’ ” 

And Mrs. Campbell, who herself was one of the num- 
ber, heaved a sigh — perhaps for Helen, perhaps for her- 
self, and for one whose very name was now forgotten ; 
who had gone down to the bottom of Loch Beg when 
the earl’s father was drowned, and never afterward been 
seen, living or dead, by any mortal eye. 

The earl gave no answer to his good nurse’s gossip. 
He contented himself with making all arrangements for 
poor Helen’s comfort, and taking care that she should be 
■supplied with every luxury befitting not alone Captain 
Bruce’s wife and Mr. Cardross’s daughter, but the “ cous- 
in” of the Earl of Cairnforth. And now, whenever he 
spoke of her, it was invariably and punctiliously as “ my 
cousin.” 

The baby too — Mrs. Campbell’s truly feminine soul 
was exalted to infinite delight and pride at being em- 
ployed by the earl to procure the most magnificent stock 
of baby-clothes that Edinburg could supply. No young 
heir to a peerage could be appareled more splendidly 
than was, within a few days, Helen’s boy. He was the 
admiration of the whole hotel ; and when his mother 
made some weak resistance, she received a gentle mes- 
sage to the effect that the Earl of Cairnforth begged, as a 
special favor, to be allowed to do exactly as he liked with 
his little “ cousin.” 


220 


A Noble Life . 

And every morning, punctual to the hour, the earl had 
himself taken up stairs into the infantile kingdom of 
which Mrs. Campbell was installed once more as head 
nurse, where he would sit watching with an amused cu- 
riosity, that was not without its pathos, the little creature 
so lately come into the world — to him, unfamiliar with 
babies, such a wondrous mystery. Alas ! a mystery 
which it was his lot to behold — as all the joys of life — 
from the outside. 

But, though life’s joys were forbidden him, its duties 
seemed to accumulate daily. There was Mr. Cardross to 
be kept patient by the assurance that all was well, and 
that presently his daughter and his grandchild would be 
coming home. There was Alick Cardross, now a young 
clerk in the office of Menteith & Ross, to be looked 
after, and kept from agitating his sister by any question- 
ings ; and there was a tribe of young Menteiths always 
needing assistance or advice — now and then something 
more tangible than advice. Then there were the earl’s 
Edinburg friends, who thronged round him in hearty 
welcome as soon as ever they heard he was again in the 
good old city, and would willingly have drawn him back 
again into that brilliant society which he had enjoyed so 
much. 

He enjoyed it still — a little; and during the weeks 
that elapsed before Helen was able to travel, or do any 
thing but lie still and be taken care of, he found oppor* 
tunity to mingle once more among his former associates. 
But his heart was always in that quiet room which he 
only entered once a day, where the newly-made widow 
eat with her orphan child at her bosom, and waited for 


A Noble Life. 221 

Time, the healer, to soothe and bind up the inevitable 
wounds. 

At last the day arrived when the earl, with his little 
cortege of two carriages, one his own, and the other con- 
taining Helen, her baby, and Mrs. Campbell, quitted Ed- 
inburg, and, traveling leisurely, neared the shores of 
Loch Beg. 

They did not come by the ferry, Lord Cairnforth hav- 
ing given orders to drive round the head of the loch, as 
the easiest and most unobtrusive way of bringing Helen 
home. Much he wondered how she bore it — the sight 
of the familiar hills — exactly the same — for it was the 
same time of year, almost the very day, when she had 
left Cairnforth; but he could not inquire. At length, 
after much thought, during the last stage of the journey, 
he bade Malcolm ask Mrs. Bruce if she would leave her 
baby for a little and come into the earl’s carriage, which 
message she obeyed at once. 

These few weeks of companionship, not constant, but 
still sufficiently close, had brought them back very much 
into their old brother and sister relation, and though 
nothing had been distinctly said about it, Helen had ac- 
cepted passively all the earl’s generosity both for herself 
and her child. Once or twice, when he had noticed a 
slight hesitation of uneasiness in her manner, Lord Cairn- 
forth had said, “I promised him, you remember,” and this 
had silenced her. Besides, she was too utterly worn out 
and broken down to resist any kindness. She seemed to 
open her heart to it— Helen’s proud, sensitive, independ- 
ent heart — much as a plant, long dried up, withered, and 
trampled upon, opens itself to the sunshine and the dew. 


222 


A Noble Life . 


But now her health, both of body and mind, had re* 
vived a little; and as she sat opposite to him in her 
gra T e, composed widowhood, even the disguise of the 
black weeds could not take away a look that returned 
again and again, reminding the earl of the Helen of his 
childhood — the bright, sweet, wholesome-natured, high- 
spirited Helen Cardross 0 

“ I asked you to come to me in the carriage,” said he, 
after they had spoken a while about ordinary things. 
* Before we reach home, I think we ought to have a little 
talk upon some few matters which we have never referred 
to as yet. Are you able for this ?” 

“Oh yes, but — I can’t — I can’t!” and a sudden ex- 
pression of trouble and fear darkened the widow’s face. 
“ Do not ask me any questions about the past. It is all 
over now ; it seems like a dream — as if I had never been 
away from Cairnforth.” 

“Let it be so then, Helen, my dear,” replied the earl, 
tenderly. “ Indeed, I never meant otherwise. It is far 
the best.” 

Thus, both at the time and ever after, he laid, and com 
pelled others to lay, the seal of silence upon those two sad 
years, the secrets of which were buried in Captain Bruce’s 
quiet grave in Grayfriars’ church-yard. 

“Helen,” he continued, “I am not going to ask you a 
single question ; I am only going to tell you a few things, 
which you are to tell your father at the first opportunity, 
so as to place you in a right position toward him, and, 
whatever his health may be, to relieve his mind entirely 
both as to you and Boy.” 

“ Boy” the little Alexander had already begun to be 


A Noble Life . 


223 


called. “ Boy” jpar excellence, for even at that early period 
of his existence he gave tokens of being a most masculine 
character, with a resolute will of his own, and a power of 
howling till he got his will which delighted Nurse Camp- 
bell exceedingly. He was already a thorough Cardross 
- — not in the least a Bruce: he inherited Helen’s great 
blue eyes, large frame, and healthy temperament, and 
was, in short, that repetition of the mother in the son 
which Dame Nature delights in, and out of which she 
sometimes makes the finest and noblest men that the 
world ever sees. 

“ Boy has been wide awake these two hours, noticing 
every thing,” said his mother, with a mother’s firm con- 
viction that this rather imaginative fact was the most im 
teresting possible to every body. “ He might have known 
the loch quite well already, by the way he kept staring 
at it.” 

“He will know it well enough by-and-by,” said the 
earl, smiling. “You are aware, Helen, that he and you 
are permanently coming home.” 

“To the Manse? yes! My dear father! he will keep 
us there during his lifetime. Afterward we must take 
our chance, my boy and I.” 

“Not quite that. Are you not aware — I thought, 
from circumstances, you must have guessed it long ago 
— that Cairnforth Castle, and my whole property, will be 
yours some time?” 

Helen colored up, vividly and painfully, to the very 
brow. 

“ I will tell you no untruth, Lord Cairnforth. I wa* 
aware of it. That is, he — I mean it was suspected that 


224 


A Noble Life . 

you had meant it once. I found this oat — don’t ask me 
how — shortly after I was married ; and I determined, as 
the only chance of avoiding it — and several other things 
—never to write to you again ; never to take the least 
means of bringing myself — us — back to your memory.” 

“ Why so ?” 1 

“ I wished you to forget us, and all connected with us, 
and to choose some one more worthy, more suitable, to 
inherit your property.” 

“ But, Helen, that choice rested with myself alone,” 
said the earl, smiling. “ Has not a man the right to do 
what he likes with his own ?” 

“ Yes; but — oh,” cried Helen, earuestly, “do not talk 
of this. It caused me such misery once. Never let us 
speak of it again.” 

“ I must speak of it,” was the answer, equally earnest. 
“ All my comfort — I will not say happiness ; we have 
both learned, Helen, not to count too much upon happi- 
ness in this world — but all the peace of my future life, 
be it short or long, depends upon my having my heart’s 
desire in this matter. It is my heart’s desire, and no one 
shall forbid it. I will carry out my intentions, whether 
you agree to them or not. I will speak of them no more, 
if you do not wish it, but I shall certainly perform them. 
And I think it would be far better if we could talk mat- 
ters out together, and arrange every thing plainly and 
openly before you go home to the Manse, if you prefer 
the Manse, though I could have wished it was to the Cas- 
tle.” 

“ To the Castle !” 

“Yes. I intended to have brought you back from 


225 


A Noble Life . 

Edinburg — all of you,” added the earl, with emphasis, 
“ to the Castle for life !” 

Helen was much affected. She made no attempt either 
to resist or to reply. 

“ But now, my dear, you shall do exactly what you 
will about the home you choose — exactly what makes 
you most content, and your father also. Only listen to 
me just for five minutes, without interrupting me. I 
never could bear to be interrupted, you know.” 

Helen faintly smiled, and Lord Cairnforth, in a brief, 
business-like way, explained how, the day after his com- 
ing of age, he had deliberately, and upon what he — and 
Mr. Menteith likewise — considered just grounds, consti- 
tuted her, Helen Cardross, as his sole heiress ; that he had 
never altered his will since, and therefore she now was, 
and always would have been, and her children after her, 
rightful successors to the Castle and broad acres of Cairn- 
forth. 

“The title lapses,” he added: “there will be no more 
Earls of Cairnforth. But your boy may be the founder 
of a new name and family, that may live and rule for 
generations along the shores of our loch, and perhaps 
keep even my poor name alive there for a little while.” 

Helen did not speak. Probably she too, with her clear 
common sense, saw the wisdom of the thing. For as, as 
the earl said, he had a right to choose his own heir — and 
as even the world would say, what better heir could he 
choose than his next of kin — Captain Bruce’s child? 
What mother could resist such a prospect for her son ? 
She sat, her tears flowing, but still with a great light in 
her blue eyes, as if she saw far away in the distance, far 
15 


226 


A Noble Life . 


beyond all this sorrow and pain, the happy future of her 
darling — her only child. 

“ Of course, Helen, I could pass you over, and leave 
all direct to that young man of yours, who is, if I died 
intestate, my rightful heir. But I will not — at least, not 
yet. Perhaps, if I live to see him of age, I may think 
i&bout making him take my name, as Bruce-Montgomerie. 
But meanwhile I shall educate him, send him to school 
and college, and at home he shall be put under Malcolm’s 
care, and have ponies to ride and boats to row. In short, 
Helen,” concluded the earl, looking earnestly in her face 
with that sad, fond, and yet peaceful expression he had, 
“ I mean your boy to do all that I could not do, and to 
be all that I ought to have been. You are satisfied?” 

“Yes — quite. I thank you. And I thank God.” 

A minute more, and the carriage stopped at the wick- 
et-gate of the Manse garden. 

There stood the minister, with his white locks bared, 
and his whole figure trembling with agitation, but still 
himself — stronger and better than he had been for many 
months. 

“Papa! papa!” And Helen, his own Helen, was in 
his arms. 

“Drive on,” said Lord Cairnforth, hurriedly; “ Mal% 
colm, we will go straight to the Castle now.” 

And so, no one heeding him — they were too happy to 
notice any thing beyond themselves — the earl passed on, 
with a strange smile, not of this world at all, upon his 
quiet face, and returned to his own stately and solitary 
home. 


Cjjapttr tjje /anrtatji. 













Good Mrs. Campbell had guessed truly that from this 
time forward Helen Bruce would be only a mother. 
Either she was one of those women in whom the mater- 
nal element predominates — who seem born to take care 
of other people and rarely to be taken care of themselves 
— or else her cruel experience of married life had forever 
blighted in her all wifely emotions — even wifely regrets. 
She was grave, sad, silent, for many months during her 
early term of widowhood, but she made no pretense of 
extravagant sorrow, and, except under the rarest and 
most necessary circumstances, she never even named her 
husband. Nothing did she betray about him, or her per- 
sonal relations with him, even to her nearest and dearest 
friends. He had passed away, leaving no more enduring 
memory than the tomb-stone which Lord Cairnforth had 
erected in Grayfriars’ church-yard 

— Except his child, of whom it was the mother’s undis- 
guised delight that, outwardly and inwardly, the little 
fellow appeared to be wholly a Cardross. With his rel- 
atives on the father’s side, after the one formal letter 
which she had requested should be written to Colonel 
Bruce announcing Captain Bruce’s death, Helen evident- 
ly wished to keep up no acquaintance whatever — nay, 
more than wished ; she was determined it should be so— 


230 


A Noble Life. 

with that quiet, resolute determination which was some* 
times seen in every feature of her strong Scotch face, 
once so girlish and sweet. Nor was her face unsweet 
now ; but it bore tokens of what she had gone through — ■ 
of a battle from which no woman ever comes out urn 
wounded or unscarred. 

But, as before said, she was a mother, and wholly a 
mother, which blessed fact healed the young widow’s 
heart better and sooner than any thing else could have 
done. Besides, in her case, there was no suspense, no 
conflict of duties — all her duties were done. Had they 
lasted after her child’s birth the struggle might have been 
too hard; for mothers have responsibilities as well as 
wives, and when these conflict, as they do sometimes, 
God help her who has to choose between them! But 
Helen was saved this misfortune. Providence had taken 
her destiny out of her own hands, and here she was, free 
as Helen Cardross of old, in exactly the same position, 
and going through the same simple round of daily cares 
and daily avocations which she had done as the minis- 
ter’s active and helpful daughter. 

For as nothing else but the minister’s daughter would 
she, for the present, be recognized at Cairnforth. Lord 
Cairnforth’s intentions toward herself or her son she in- 
sisted on keeping wholly secret, except, oi course, as re- 
garded that dear and good father. 

“I may die,” she said to the earl — “die before your- 
self ; and if my boy grows up, you may not love him, or 
he may not deserve your love, in which case you must 
choose another heir. No, you shall be bound in no way 
externally ; let all go on as heretofore. I will have it so. y 


231 


A Noble Life . 

And of all Lord Cairnforth’s generosity she would ac- 
cept of nothing for herself except a small annual sum, 
which, with her widow’s pension from the East India 
Company, sufficed to make her independent of her fa- 
ther; but she did not refuse kindness to her boy. 

Never was there such a boy. “ Boy” he was called 
from the first, never “baby there was nothing of the 
baby about him. Before he was a year old he ruled his 
mother, grandfather, and Uncle Duncan with a rod of 
iron. Nay, the whole village were his slaves. “ Miss 
Helen’s bairn” was a little king every where. It might 
have gone rather hard for the poor wee fellow thus alle- 
gorically 

“Wearing on his baby brow the round 
And top of sovereignty” — 

that dangerous sovereignty for any child — any human 
being — to wield, had there not been at least one person 
who was able to assume authority over him. 

This was, strange to say — and yet not strange — the 
Earl of Cairnforth. 

From his earliest babyhood Boy had been accustomed 
to the sight of the motionless figure in the moving chair, 
who never touched him, but always spoke so kindly and 
looked round so smilingly ; whom, he could perceive— 
for children are quicker to notice things than we some- 
times think — his mother and grandfather invariably wel 
corned with such exceeding pleasure, and treated witfi 
never-failing respect and tenderness. And, as soon as he 
could crawl, the footboard of the mysterious wheeled 
chair became to the little man a perfect treasure-house 
of delight. Hidden there he found toys, picture-books, 


232 


A Noble Life, 


“sweeties” — gifts such as he got nowhere else, and for 
which, before appropriating them, he was carefully taught 
to express thanks in his own infantile way, and made to 
understand fully from whom they came. 

“It’s bribery, and against my principles,” the earl 
would sometimes say, half sadly. “ But, if I did not give 
him things, how else could Boy learn to love me?” 

Helen never answered this, no more than she used to 
answer many similar speeches in the earl’s childhood. 
She knew time would prove them all to be wrong. 

What sort of idea the child really had of this wonder- 
ful donor, the source of most of his pleasures, who yet 
was so different extern ally from every body else; who 
never moved from the wheel-chair ; who neither caress- 
ed him nor played with him, and whom he was not al- 
lowed to play with, but only lifted up sometimes to kiss 
softly the kind face which always smiled down upon him 
with a sort of “ superior love” — what the child’s childish 
notion of his friend was no one could of course discover. 
But it must have been a mingling of awe and affection- 
ateness; for he would often — even before he could walk 
— crawl up to the little chair, steady himself by it, and 
then look into Lord Cairnforth’s face with those myste* 
rious baby eyes, full of questioning, but yet without the 
slightest fear. And once, when his mother was teaching 
him his first hymn — 

“ Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 

Look upon a little child,” 

Boy startled her by the sudden remark — one of the di- 
vine profanities that are often falling from the innocent 
lips of little children— 


233 


A Noble Life . 

“I know Jesus. He is the earl.” 

And then Helen tried, in some simple way, to make 
the child understand about Lord Cairnforth, and how he 
had been all his life so heavily afflicted ; but Boy could 
not comprehend it as affliction at all. There seemed to 
him something not inferior, but superior to all other peo- 
ple in that motionless figure, with its calm sweet face — 
who was never troubled, never displeased — whom every 
body delighted to obey, and at whose feet lay treasures 
untold. 

“I think Boy likes me,” Lord Cairnforth would say, 
when he met the upturned beaming face as the child, in 
an ecstasy of expectation, ran to meet him. “ His love 
may last as long as the playthings do.” 

But the earl was mistaken, as Helen knew. His love- 
victory had been in something deeper than toys and 
“ goodies.” Even when their charm began to cease Boy 
still crept up to the little chair, and looked from the emp- 
ty footboard up to the loving face, which no one, man, 
woman, or child, ever regarded without something far 
higher than pity. 

And, by degrees, Boy, or “ Carr” — which, as being the 
diminutive for his second Christian name, Cardross, he 
was often called now — found a new attraction in his 
friend. He would listen with wide-open eyes, and at- 
tention that never flagged, to the interminable “ ’tories” 
which the earl told him, out of the same brilliant imag- 
ination which had once used to delight his uncles in the 
boat. And so, little by little, the child and the man grew 
to be “ a pair of friends” — familiar and fond, but with a 
certain tender reverence always between them, which had 
the most salutary effect on the younger. 


234 


A Noble Life. 


Whenever he was sick, or sorry, or naughty — and 
Master “ Boy” could be exceedingly naughty sometimes 
— the voice which had most influence over him, the in- 
fluence to which he always succumbed, came from the 
little wheeled chair. No anger did he ever find there — 
no dark looks or sharp tones — but he found steady, un- 
bending authority; the firm will which never passed 
over a single fault, or yielded to a single whim. In his 
wildest passions of grief or wrath, it was only necessary 
to say to the child, “ If the earl could see you!” to make 
him pause ; and many and many a time, whenever moth- 
erly authority, which in this case was weakened both by 
occasional over-indulgence and by an almost morbid ter 
ror of the results of the same, failed to conquer the child, 
Helen used, as a last resource, to bring him in her arms, 
set him down beside Lord Cairnforth, and leave him there 
She never came back but she found Boy “good.” 

“ He makes me good, too, I think,” the earl would say 
now and then, “for he makes me happy.” 

It was true. Lord Cairnforth never looked otherwise 
than happy when he had beside him that little blossom 
of hope of the new generation — Helen’s child. 

As years went by, though he still lived alone at the 
Castle, it was by no means the secluded life of his youth 
and early manhood. He gradually gathered about him 
neighbors and friends. He filled his house occasionally 
with guests, of his own rank and of all ranks; people 
notable and worthy to be known. He became a “pa- 
tron,” as they called it in those days, of art and literature, 
and assembled around him all who, for his pleasure and 
their own benefit, chose to enjoy his hospitality. 


285 


A Noble Life . 

In a quiet way, for he disliked public show, he was 
likewise what was termed a “ philanthropist,” but always 
on the system which he had learned in his boyhood from 
Helen and Mr. Cardross, that “ charity begins at home;” 
with the father who guides well his own household ; the 
minister whose footstep is welcomed at every door in his 
own parish ; the proprietor whose just, wise, and merci- 
ful rule make him sovereign absolute in his own estate. 
This last especially was the character given along all the 
country-side to the Earl of Cairnforth. 

His was not a sad existence; far from it. None who 
knew him, and certainly none who ever staid long with 
him in his own home, went away with that impression. 
He enjoyed what he called “a sunshiny life” — having 
sunshiny faces about him ; people who knew how to ac- 
cept the sweet and endure the bitter ; to see the heaven- 
ly side even of sorrow ; to do good to all, and receive 
good from all ; avoiding all envies, jealousies, angers, and 
strifes, and following out literally the apostolic command, 
“ As much as in you lies, live peaceably with all men.” 

And so the earl was, in the best sense of the word, 
popular. Every body liked him, and he liked every 
body. But deep in his heart — ay, deeper than any of 
these his friends and acquaintance ever dreamed — steady- 
ing and strengthening it, keeping it warm for all human 
uses, yet calm with the quiet sadness of an eternal want, 
lay all those emotions which are not likings, but loves ; 
not sympathies, but passions ; but which with him were 
to be, in this world, forever dormant and unfulfilled. 

Never, let the Castle be ever so full of visitors, or let 
his daily cares, his outward interests, and his innumera* 


236 


A Noble Life. 

ble private charities be ever so great, did he omit driving 
over twice or thrice a week to spend an hour or two at 
the Manse — in winter, by the study fire ; in summer, under 
the shade of the green elm-trees — the same trees where 
he had passed that first sunny Sunday when he came a 
poor, lonely, crippled orphan child into the midst of the 
large, merry family — all scattered now. 

The minister, Helen, and Boy were the sole inmates 
left at the Manse, and of these three the latter certainly 
was the most important. Hide it as she would, the prin- 
cipal object of the mother’s life was her only child. 
Many a time, as Lord Cairnforth sat talking with her, 
after his old fashion, of all his interests, schemes, labors, 
and hopes — hopes solely for others, and labors, the end 
of which he knew he would never see — he would smile 
to himself, noticing how Helen’s eye wandered all the 
while — wandered to where that rosy young scapegrace 
rode his tiny pony — the earl’s gift — up and down the 
gravel walks, or played at romps with Malcolm, or dug 
holes in the flower-beds, or got into all and sundry of the 
countless disgraces which were forever befalling Boy; 
yet which, so lovable was the little fellow, were as con- 
tinually forgiven, and, behind his back, even exalted into 
something very like merits. 

But once — and it was an incident which, whether or 
not Mrs. Bruce forgot it herself, her friend never did, 
since it furnished a key to much of the past, and a serious 
outlook for the future — Boy committed an error which 
threw his mother into an agony of agitation such as she 
had not betrayed since she came back, a widow, to Cairn* 
forth. 


237 


A Noble Life. 

Her little son told a lie ! It was a very small lie, such 
as dozens of children tell — are punished and pardoned — 
but a lie it was. It happened one August morning, when 
the raspberries were ripe — those huge red and white rasp- 
berries for which the Manse was famous. He was de- 
sired not to touch them— “ not to lay a finger on them,” 
insisted the mother. And he promised. But, alas ! the 
promises of four years old are not absolutely reliable; 
and so that which happened once in a more ancient gar- 
den happened in the garden of the Manse. Boy plucked 
and ate. He came back to his mother with his white 
pinafore all marked, and his red mouth redder still with 
condemnatory stains. Yet, when asked “ if he had touch- 
ed the raspberries,” he opened that wicked mouth and 
said, unblushingly, “ No !” 

Of course it was an untruth — self-evident ; in its very 
simplicity almost amusing ; but the earl was not prepared 
for the effect it seemed to have upon Helen. She started 
back, her lips actually blanched and her eyes glowing. 

“ My son has told a lie !” she cried, and kept repeating 
it over and over again. “ My son has looked me in the 
face and told me a lie — his first lie !” 

“Hush, Helen!” for her manner seemed actually to 
frighten the child. 

“No, I can not pass it over! I dare not! He must 
be punished. Come !” 

She seized Boy by the hand, looking another way, and 
was moving off with him, as if she hardly knew what she 
was doing. 

“ Helen !” called the earl, almost reproachfully ; for, in 
his opinion, out of all comparison with the offense seemed 


238 


A Noble Life . 

the bitterness with which the mother felt it, and was 
about to punish it. “ Tell me, first, what are you going 
to do with the child ?” 

“ I hardly know — I must think — must pray. What if 
my son, my only son, should inherit — I mean, if he should 
grow up to be a liar ?” 

That word 1 inherit” betrayed her. No wonder now 
at the mother’s agony of fear — she who was mother to 
Captain Bruce’s son. Lord Cairnforth guessed it all. 

“I understand,” said he. “But — ” 

“No,” Helen interrupted, “ you need understand noth- 
ing, for I have told you nothing. Only I must kill the 
sin — the fatal sin— at the very root. I must punish him. 
Come, child !” 

She was trembling all over with agitation. 

“ Come back, Helen,” said the earl ; and something in 
the tone made her obey at once, as occasionally during 
her life Helen had been glad to obey him, and creep un- 
der the shelter of a stronger will and clearer judgment 
than her own. “ You are altogether mistaken, my dear 
friend. Your boy is only a child, and errs as such, and 
you treat him as if he had sinned like a grown-up man. 
Be reasonable. We will both take care of him. No fear 
that he will turn out a liar!” 

Helen hesitated ; but still her looks were so angry and 
stern, all the mother vanished out of them, that the boy, 
instead of clinging to her, ran away crying, and hid him- 
self behind Lord Cairnforth’s chair. 

“ Leave him to me, Helen. Can not you trust me^-* 
with your son ?” 

Mrs. Bruce paused. 


239 


A Noble Life . 

“Now,” said the earl, wheeling himself round a little, 
so that he came face to face with the sobbing child, “ lift 
up your head, Boy, and speak the truth like a man to 
me and to your mother — see ! she is listening. Did you 
touch those raspberries ?” 

“No!” 

“ Cardross !” calling him by his rarely-spoken name, 
not his pet-name, and fixing upon him eyes, not angry, 
but clear and searching, that compelled the truth even 
from a child, “think again. You must tell us!” 

“ No, me didn’t touch them,” answered Boy, dropping 
his head in conscious shame. “ Not with me fingers. 
Me just opened me mouth and they popped in.” 

Lord Cairnforth could hardly help smiling at the poor 
little sinner — the infant Jesuit attaining his object by 
such an ingenious device ; but the mother did not smile, 
and her look was harder than ever. 

“You hear! If not a lie, it was a prevarication. He 
who lies is a scoundrel^ but he who prevaricates is a 
scoundrel and coward too. Sooner than Boy should 
grow up like — like that, I would rather die. No, I would 
rather see him die ; for I might come in time to hate my 
own son.” 

By these fierce words, and by the gleaming eyes, 
which made a sudden and total change in the subdued 
manner, and the plain, almost elderly face under the 
widow’s cap that Helen always wore, Lord Cairnforth 
guessed, more than he had ever guessed before, of what 
the sufferings of her married life had been. 

“My friend,” he said, and there was infinite pity as 
well as tenderness in his voice, “believe me, you are 


240 


A Noble Life. 

wrong. You are foreboding what, please God, will new 
er happen. God does not deal with us in that manner. 
He bids us do His will, each of us individually, without 
reference to the doings or misdoings of any other person. 
And if we obey Him, I believe He takes care we shall 
not suffer — at least not forever, even in this world. Do 
not be afraid. Boy,” calling the little fellow, who was 
now sobbing in bitterest contrition behind the wheeled 
chair, “come and kiss your mother. Promise her that 
you will never again vex her by telling a lie.” 

“ No, no, no. Me’ll not vex mamma. Good mamma ! 
pretty mamma! Boy so sorry !” 

And he clung closely and passionately to his mother, 
kissing her averted face twenty times over. 

“You see, Helen, you need not fear,” said the earl. 

Helen burst into tears. 

After that day it came to be a general rule that, when 
she could not manage him herself, which not unfrequent- 
ly happened — for the very similarity in temperament 
and disposition between the mother and son made their 
conflicts, even at this early age, longer and harder — 
Helen brought Boy up to the Castle and left him, some- 
times for hours together, in the library with Lord Cairn- 
forth. He always came home to the Manse quiet and 
“good.” 

And so out of babyhood into boyhood, and thence 
into youth, grew the earl’s adopted son ; for practically 
it became that relationship, though no distinct explana- 
tion was ever given, or any absolute information vouch- 
safed, for indeed there was none who had a right to in- 
quire; still, the neighborhood and the public large 


241 


A Noble Life . 

took it for granted that such were Lord Cairnforth’s in- 
tentions toward his little cousin. 

As for the boy’s mother, she led a life very retired — 
more retired than even Helen Cardross, doing all her du- 
ties as the minister’s daughter, but seldom appearing in 
society. And society speculated little about her. Some- 
times, when the Castle was full of guests, Mrs. Bruce ap- 
peared among them, still in her widow’s weeds, to be re- 
ceived by Lord Cairnforth with marked attention and 
respect — always called “my cousin,” and, whoever was 
present, invariably requested to take the head of his ta- 
ble ; but, except at these occasional seasons, and at birth- 
days, new years, and so on, Helen was seldom seen out 
of the Manse, and was very little known to the earl’s or- 
dinary acquaintance. 

But every body in the whole peninsula knew the min- 
ister’s grandson, young Master Bruce. The boy was tall 
of his age — not exactly handsome, being too like his 
mother for that; nevertheless, the robustness of form, 
which in her was too large for comeliness, became in him 
only manly size and strength. He was athletic, graceful, 
and active ; he learned to ride almost as soon as he could 
walk ; and, under Malcolm’s charge, was early initiated 
in all the mysteries of moor and loch. By fourteen years 
of age Cardross Bruce was the best shot, the best fisher, 
the best hand at an oar, of all the young lads in the 
neighborhood. 

Then, too, though allowed to run rather wild, he was 
unmistakably a gentleman. Though he mixed freely 
with every body in the parish, he was neither haughty 
nor over-familiar with any one. He had something of 
16 


242 


A Noble Life . 

the minister’s manner with inferiors — frank, gentle, and 
free — winning both trust and love, and yet it was im- 
possible to take liberties with him. And some of the 
elder people in the clachan declared the lad had at times 
just “the merry glint o’ the minister’s e’en” when Mr. 
Cardross first came to the parish as a young man with 
his young wife. 

He was an old man now, “ wearin’ awa’,” but slowly 
and peacefully; preaching still, though less regularly; 
for, to his great delight, his son Duncan, having come out 
creditably at college, had been appointed his assistant and 
successor. Uncle Duncan — only twelve years his neph- 
ew’s senior — was also appointed by Lord Cairnforth tutor 
to “ Boy” Bruce. The two were very good friends, and 
not unlike one another. “ Ay, he’s just a Cardross,” was 
the universal remark concerning young Bruce. No one 
ever hinted that the lad was like his father. 

He was not. Nature seemed mercifully to have for- 
gotten to perpetuate that type of character which had 
given Mr. Menteith formerly, and others since, such a 
justifiable dread of the Bruce family, and such a right- 
eous determination to escape them. Not to injure them 
- — only to escape them. Lord Cairnforth still paid the 
annuity, but on condition that no one of his father’s kin- 
dred should ever interfere, in the smallest degree, with 
Helen’s child. 

This done, both he and she trusted to the strong safe- 
guards of habit and education, and all other influences 
which so strongly modify character, to make the boy all 
that they desired him to be, and to counteract those tend- 
encies which, as Lord Cairnforth plainly perceived, were 


243 


A Noble Life . 

Helen’s daily dread. It was a struggle, mysterious as 
that which visible human free-will is forever opposing 
(apparently) to invisible fate, the end of which it is im- 
possible to see, and yet we struggle on. 

Thus laboring together with one hope, one aim, and 
one affection, all centred in this boy, Lord Cairnforth and 
Mrs. Bruce passed many a placid year. And when the 
mother’s courage failed her — when her heart shrank in 
apprehension from real terrors or from chimeras of her 
own creating, her friend taught her to fold patiently her 
trembling hands, and say, as she herself and the minister 
had first taught him in his forlorn boyhood, the one only 
prayer which calms fear and comforts sorrow — the lesson 
of the earl’s whole life — “Thy will be donel” 




Chapter tjie fiflmit 















u Helen, that boy of yours ought to be sent to col- 
lege.” 

“ Oh no ! Surely you do not think it necessary ?” said 
Helen, visibly shrinking. 

She and Lord Cairn forth were sitting together in the 
Castle library. Young Cardross had been sitting beside 
them, holding a long argument with his mother, as he 
often did, for he was of a decidedly argumentative turn 
of mind, until, getting the worst of the battle, and being 
rather “put down” — a position rarely agreeable to the 
self-esteem of eighteen — he had flushed up angrily, made 
no reply, but opened one of the low windows and leaped 
out on the terrace. There, pacing to and fro along the 
countess’s garden, they saw the boy, or rather young 
man, for he looked like one now. He moved with a 
rapid step, the wind tossing his fair curls — Helen’s curls 
over again — and cooling his cheeks as he tried to recover 
his temper, which he did not often lose, especially in the 
earl’s presence. 

Experience had not effaced the first mysterious im- 
pression made on the little child’s mind by the wheeled 
chair and its occupant. If there was one person in the 
world who had power to guide and control this high- 
spirited lad, it was Lord Cairnforth. And as the latter 
moved his chair a little round, so that he could more 


248 


A Noble Life . 

easily look out into the garden and see the graceful fig- 
ure sauntering among the flower-beds, it was evident by 
his expression that the earl loved Helen’s boy very 
dearly. 

“ He is a fine fellow, and a good fellow as ever was 
born, that young man of yours. Still, as I have told you 
many a time, he would be all the better if he were sent 
to college.” 

“For his education? I thought Duncan was fully 
competent to complete that.” 

“Not altogether. But, for many reasons, I think it 
would be advisable for him to go from home for a while.” 

“Why? Because his mother spoils him?” 

The earl smiled, and gave no direct answer. In truth, 
the harm Helen did her boy was not so much in her 
“spoiling” — love rarely injures — as in the counteracting 
weight which she sometimes threw on the other side — in 
the sudden tight rein which she drew upon his little fol- 
lies and faults — the painful clashing of two equally 
strong wills, which sometimes happened between the 
mother and son. 

This was almost inevitable, with Helen’s peculiar char- 
acter. As she sat there, the sun shining on her fair face 
—still fair ; a clear, healthy red and white, though she 
was over forty — you might trace some harsh lines in it, 
and see clearly that, save for her exceeding unselfishness 
and lovingness of disposition, Mrs. Bruce might in mid- 
dle age have grown into what is termed a “ hard” wom- 
an ; capable of passionate affection, but of equally pas- 
sionate severity, and prone to exercise both alike upon 
the beings most precious to her on earth. 


A Noble Life . 


249 


11 1 fear it is not a pleasant doctrine to preach to moth- 
ers,” said Lord Cairnforth ; “ but, Helen, all bojs ought 
to leave home some time. How else are they to know 
the world?” 

“I do not wish my boy to know the world.” 

“ But he must. He ought. Remember his life is like * 
iy to be a very different one from either yours or mine. ” 

11 Do not let us think of that,” said Helen, uneasily. 

“ My friend, I have been thinking of it ever since he 
was born — or, at least, ever since he came to Cairnforth. 
That day seems almost like yesterday, and yet — We are 
growing quite middle-aged folk, Helen, my dear.” 

Helen sighed. These peaceful, uneventful years, how 
fast they had slipped by ! She began to count them 
after the only fashion by which she cared to count any 
thing now. “ Yes, Cardross will be a man — actually and 
legally a man — in little more than two years.” 

“ That is just what I was considering. By that time 
we must come to some decision on a subject which you 
will never let me speak of ; but by-and-by, Helen, you 
must. Do you suppose that your son guesses, or that 
any body has ever told him, what his future position is 
to be?” 

“ I think not. There was nobody to tell him, for no. 
body knew. No,” continued Helen, speaking strongly 
and decidedly, “ I am determined on one point — nothing 
shall bind you as regards my son or me — nothing, except 
your own free will. To talk of me as your successor is 
idle. I am older than you are ; and you must not be 
compromised as regards my son. He is a good boy now, 
but temptation is strong, and,” with an irrepressible shud* 


250 


A Noble Life . 


der, “ appearances are deceitful sometimes. Wait, as 1 
have always said — wait till you see what sort of man 
Cardross turns out to be.” 

Lord Cairnforth made no reply, and once more the two 
friends sat watching the unconscious youth, who had been 
for so many years the one object of both their lives. 

“ Ignorance is not innocence,” said the earl at length, 
after a long fit of musing. “If you bind a creature mor- 
ally hand and foot, how can it ever learn to walk ? It 
would, as soon as you loosed the bonds, find itself not 
free, but paralyzed — as helpless a creature as myself.” 

Helen turned away from watching her boy, and laid 
her hand tenderly, in her customary caress, on the feeble 
hand, which yet had been the means of accomplishing so 
much. 

“ You should not speak so,” she said. “ Scarcely ever 
is there a more useful life than yours.” 

“ More useful, certainly, than any one once expected 
— except you, Helen. I have tried to make you not 
ashamed of me these thirty years.” 

“Is it so many? Thirty years since the day you first 
came to the Manse ?” 

“ Yes ; you know I was forty last birthday. Who 
would have thought my life would have lasted so long? 
But it can not last forever ; and before I am 1 away,’ as 
your dear old father would say, I should like to leave 
you quite settled and happy about that boy.” 

“ Who says I am not happy ?” answered Mrs. Bruce^ 
rather sharply. 

“Nobody; but I see it myself sometimes — when you 
get that restless, anxious look — there it is now ! Helen, 


251 


A Noble Life . 

f mast have it away. I think it would trouble me in my 
grave if I left you unhappy,” added the earl, regarding 
her with that expression of yearning tenderness which 
she had been so used to all her days that she rarely no- 
ticed it until the days came when she saw it no more. 

“ I am not unhappy,” she said, earnestly. “ Why 
should I be ? My dear father keeps well still — he en- 
joys a green old age. And is not my son growing up 
every thing that a mother’s heart could desire ?” 

“I do believe it. Cardross is a good boy — a very 
good boy. But the metal has never been tested — as the 
soundest metal always requires to be — and until this is 
done, you will never rest. I had rather it were done 
during my lifetime than afterward. Helen, I particular- 
ly wish the boy to go to college.” 

The earl spoke so decidedly that Mrs. Bruce replied 
with only the brief question “Where?” 

“ To Edinburg ; because there he would not be left 
quite alone. His uncle Alick would keep an eye upon 
him, and he could be boarded with Mrs. Menteith, whose 
income would be none the worse for the addition I 
would make to it; for of course, Helen, if he goes, it must 
be — not exactly as my declared heir, since you dislike 
that so much, but — as my cousin and nearest of kin, 
which he is undeniably.” 

Helen acquiesced in silence. 

“I have a right to him, you see,” said Lord Cairnforth, 
smiling, “ and really I am rather proud of my young fel- 
low. He may not be very clever — the minister says he 
is not — but he is what I call a man. Like his mother, 
who never was clever, but yet was every inch a woman 


252 A Noble Life. 

^-the best woman, in all relations of life, that 1 eve* 
knew.” 

Helen smiled too — a little sadly, perhaps — but soon her 
mind recurred from all other things to her one promi- 
nent thought. 

11 And what would you do with the boy himself? He 
knows nothing of money — has never had a pound-note in 
his pocket all his life.” 

“ Then it is high time he should have — and a good 
many of them. I shall pay Mrs. Menteith well for his 
board, but I shall make him a sufficient allowance be- 
sides. He must learn how to manage his money — and 
himself. He must stand on his own feet, without any 
one to support him. It is the only way to make a boy 
into a man — a man that is worth any thing. Do you not 
see that yourself?” 

“I see, Lord Cairnforth, that you think it would be 
best for my boy to be separated from his mother.” 

She spoke in a hurt tone, and yet with a painful con- 
sciousness that what she said was not far off the truth, 
more especially as the earl did not absolutely deny the 
accusation. 

“ I think, my dear Helen, that it would be better if he 
were separated from us all for a time. We are such 
quiet, old-fashioned folks at Cairnforth, he may come to 
weary of us, you know. But my strongest motive is ex- 
actly what I stated — that he should be left to himself, to 
feel his own strength and the strength of those principles 
which we have tried to give him — that any special char- 
acter he possesses may have free space to develop itself. 
Up to a certain point we can take care of our children ; 


253 


A Noble Life. 

beyond, we can not — nay, we ought not ; they must take 
care of themselves. I believe — do not be angry, Helen 
— but I believe there comes a time in every boy’s life 
when the wisest thing even his mother can do for him is 
^ to leave him alone.” 

“And not watch over him — not guide him?” 

“ Yes, but not so as to vex him by the watching and 
the guiding. However, we will talk of this another day. 
Here the lad comes.” 

And the earl’s eyes brightened almost as much as Hel- 
en’s did when Cardross leaped in at the window, all his 
good-humor restored, kissed his mother in his rough, fond 
way, of which he was not in the least ashamed as yet, and 
sat down by the wheeled chair with that tender respect- 
fulness and involuntary softening of manner and tone 
which he never failed to show toward Lord Cairnforth, 
and had never shown so much to any other human being. 

Ay, the earl had his compensations. We all have, if 
we know it. 

Gradually, in many a long, quiet talk, during which 
she listened to his reasonings as probably she would have 
listened to no other man’s, he contrived to reconcile Mrs. 
Bruce to the idea of parting with her boy — their first sep- 
aration, even for a day, since Cardross was born. It was 
neither for very long nor very far, since civilization had 
now brought Edinburg to within a few hours’ journey of 
Cairnforth; but it was very sore, nevertheless, to both 
mother and son. 

Helen took her boy and confided him to Mrs. Menteith 
herself ; but she could not be absent for more than one 
day, for just about this time her father’s “green old age” 


254 


A Noble Life . 


began to fail a little, and he grew extremely dependent 
upon her, which, perhaps, was the best thing that could 
have happened to her at this crisis. She had to assume 
that tenderest, happiest duty of being “ nursing mother” 
to the second childhood of one who throughout her own 
childhood, youth, and middle age had been to her every 
thing that was honored and deserving honor — loving, and 
worthy of love — in a parent. 

Not that Mr. Cardross had sank into any helpless state 
of mind or body ; the dread of paralysis had proved a 
false alarm ; and Helen’s coming home, to remain there 
forever, together with the thoroughly peaceful life which 
he had since lived for so many years, had kept up the old 
man’s vitality to a surprising extent. His life was now 
only fading away by slow and insensible degrees, like the 
light out of the sunset clouds, or the colors from the 
mountains — silent warnings of the night coming “in 
which no man can work.” 

The minister had worked all his days — his Master’s 
work ; none the less worthy that it was done in no pub- 
lic manner, and had met with no public reward. Beyond 
his own Presbytery the name of the Reverend Alexan- 
der Cardross was scarcely known. He was not a popu- 
lar preacher ; he had never published a book, nor even a 
sermon, and he had taken no part in the theological con- 
troversies of the time. He was content to let other men 
fight about Christianity ; he only lived it, spending him- 
self for naught, some might think, in his own country 
parish and among his poor country people, the pastor 
and father of them all. 

He had never striven after this world’s good things, 


A Noble Life . 


255 


and they never came to him in any great measure ; but 
better things did. He always had enough, and a little to 
spare for those who had less. In his old age this right- 
eous man was not “ forsaken,” and his seed never “beg- 
ged their bread.” His youngest, Duncan, was always 
beside him, and yearly his four other sons came to visit 
him from the various places where they had settled 
themselves, to labor, and prosper, and transmit honor- 
ably to another generation the honest name of Cardross. 

For the minister’s “ ae dochter,” she was, as she had 
been always, his right hand, watching him, tending him, 
helping and guarding him, expending her whole life for 
him, so as to make him feel as lightly as possible the 
gradual decay of his own ; above all, loving him with a 
love that made labor easy and trouble light — the pas- 
sionately devoted love which we often see sons show to 
mothers, and daughters to fathers, when they have never 
had the parental ideal broken, nor been left to wander 
through life in a desolation which is only second to that 
of being “ without God in the world.” 

“I think he has a happy old age — the dear old fa- 
ther!” said Helen one day, when she and Lord Cairnforth 
sat talking, while the minister was as usual absorbed in 
the library — the great Cairnforth library, now becoming 
notable all over Scotland, of which Mr. Cardross had had 
the sole arrangement, and every book therein the earl 
declared he loved as dearly as he did his children. 

“Yes, he is certainly happy. And he has had a hap- 
py life, too — more so than most people.” 

“He deserved it. All these seventy-five years he has 
kept truth on his lips, and honor and honesty in his heart 


256 


A Noble Life. 


He has told no man a lie ; has overreached and de* 
ceived no man; and, though he was poor — poor always ) 
when he married my mother, exceedingly poor — he has 
literally, from that day to this, ‘ owed no man any thing 
but to love one another.’ Oh !” cried Helen, looking aft- 
er the old man in almost a passion of tenderness, “ oh 
that my son may grow up like his grandfather! Like 
nobody else — only his grandfather.” 

“I think he will,” answered Lord Cairnforth. 

And, in truth, the accounts they had of young Cardross 
were for some time extremely satisfactory. He had ac- 
commodated himself to his new life — had taken kindly 
to his college work ; gave no trouble to Mrs. Menteith, 
and still less to his uncle; the latter a highly respectable 
but not very interesting gentleman — a partner in the firm 
of Menteith and Ross, and lately married to the youngest 
Miss Menteith. 

Still, by his letters, the nephew did not seem over- 
whelmingly fond of him, complaining sometimes that 
Uncle Alick interfered with him a little too much ; in- 
vestigated his expenses, made him balance his accounts, 
and insisted that these should be kept within the limits 
suitable for Mrs. Bruce’s son and Mr. Cardross’s grand- 
son, who would have to work his way in the world as 
his uncles had done before him. 

“ You see, Helen,” said the earl, “ all concealment 
brings its difficulties. It would be much easier for the 
boy if he were told his position and his future career at 
once — nay, if he had known it from the first.” 

But Helen would not hear of this. She was obstinate, 
all but fierce, on the subiect. No argument would con* 


257 


A Noble Life . 

vince her that it was not safer for her son, who had been 
brought up in such Arcadian simplicity, to continue be- 
lieving himself what he appeared to be, than to be daz- 
zled by the knowledge that he was the chosen heir of 
the Earl of Cairnforth. 

So, somewhat against his judgment, the earl yielded. 

All winter and spring things went on peacefully in the 
little peninsula, which was now being grasped tightly by 
the strong arm of encroaching civilization. Acre after 
acre of moorland disappeared, and became houses, gar- 
dens, green-houses, the feu-rents of which made the es- 
tate of Cairnforth more valuable every year. 

“ That young man of yours will have enough on his 
hands one day,” the earl said to Helen. “ He lives an 
'easy life now, and little thinks what hard work he is 
coming to. As Mr. Menteith once told me, the owner 
of Cairnforth has no sinecure, nor will have for the next 
quarter of a century.” 

“You expect a busy life, then?” 

“Yes; and I must have that boy to help me — till he 
<jomes to his own. But, Helen, after that time, you must 
not let him be idle. The richest man should work, if he 
can. I wonder what line of work Cardross will take ; 
whether he will attempt politics — his letters are very po- 
litical just now, do you notice?” 

“Very. And there is not half enough about him- 
self.” 

“ He might get into Parliament,” continued the earl, 
“and perhaps some day win a peerage in his own right. 
Eh, Helen? Would you like to be mother to a viscount 
' — Viscount Cairnforth?” 

17 


258 


A Noble Life. 

“No,” said Helen, tenderly, “there shall never be an* 
other Lord Cairnforth.” 

Thus sat these two, planning by the hour together the 
future of the boy who was their one delight It amused 
them through all the winter and spring, till Cairnforth 
woods grew green again, and Loch Beg recovered its 
smile of sunshiny peace, and the hills at the head of it 
took their summer colors, lovely and calm, even as, year 
after year, these friends had watched them throughout 
their two lives, of which both were now keenly begin- 
ning to feel the greater part lay, not before them, but be- 
hind. But in thinking of this boy they felt young again, 
as if he brought to one the hope, to the other the faint 
recollection of happiness that in the great mystery of 
Providence to each had been personally denied. 

And yet they were not unhappy. Helen was not. No 
one could look into her face — strongly marked, but rosy- 
complexioned, healthy, and comely — the sort of large 
comeliness which belongs to her peculiar type of Scotch 
women, especially in their middle age — without seeing 
that life was to her not only duty, but enjoyment — ay, 
in spite of the widow’s cap, which marked her out as one 
who permanently belonged and meant to belong only to 
her son. 

And the earl, though he was getting to look old — old- 
er than Helen did — for his black curls were turning 
gray, and the worn and withered features, contrasting 
with the small, childish figure, gave him a weird sort 
of aspect that struck almost painfully at first upon stran- 
gers, still Lord Cairnforth preserved the exceeding sweet- 
ness and peacefulness of expression which had made his 


A Noble Life . 259 

face so beautiful as a boy, and so winning as a young 
man. 

<£ He’ll ne’er be an auld man,” sometimes said tbe folk 
about Cairnforth, shaking their heads as they looked aft- 
er him, and speculating for how many years the feeble 
body would hold out. Also, perhaps — for self-interest is 
bound up in the heart of every human being — feeling a 
little anxiety as to who should come after him, to be lord 
and ruler over them ; perhaps to be less loved, less hon- 
ored — more so none could possibly be. 

It was comfort to those who loved him then, and far 
more comfort afterward to believe — nay, to know for cer- 
tain — that many a man, absorbed in the restless struggle 
of this busy world, prosperous citizen, husband and fa- 
ther, had, on the whole, led a far less happy life than the 
Earl of Cairnforth. 


Cliajito tfiE liitaty. 















































































































































































































































































One mild, sunny autumn day, when Cardross, having 
ended his first session at college, had spent apparently 
with extreme enjoyment his first vacation at home, and 
had just gone back again to Edinburg to commence his 
second “year,” the Earl of Cairnforth drove down to the 
Manse, as he now did almost daily, for the minister was 
growing too feeble to come to the Castle very often. 

His old pupil found him sitting in the garden, sunning 
himself in a sheltered nook, backed by a goodly show of 
China roses and fuchsias, and companioned by two or 
three volumes of Greek plays, in which, however, he did 
not read much. He looked up with pleasure at the sound 
of the wheeled chair along the gravel walk. 

“Tm glad you are come,” said he. “Fm sorely need- 
ing somebody, for I have scarcely seen Helen all the 
morning. There she is! My lassie, where have you 
been these three hours?” 

Helen put off his question in some gentle manner, and 
took her place beside her charge, or rather between her 
two charges, each helpless in their way, though the one 
most helpless once was least so now. 

“Helen, something is wrong with you this morning?” 
paid the earl, when, Mr. Cardross having gone away for 
his little daily walk up and down between the garden 


264 A Noble Life . 

and the kirk-yard, they two sat by themselves for a 
while. 

Mrs. Bruce made no answer. 

“ Nothing can be amiss with your boy, for I had a let* 
tei from him only yesterday.” 

“ I had one this morning.” 

“ And what does he say to you ? To me little enough, 
merely complaining how dull he finds Edinburg now, 
and wishing he were back again among us all.” 

“I do not wonder,” said Helen, in a hard tone, and 
with that hard expression which sometimes came over 
her face : the earl knew it well. 

“ Helen, I am certain something is very wrong with 
you. Why do you not tell it out to me?” 

“ Hush ! here comes my father !” 

And she hurried to him, gave him her arm, and helped 
his feeble steps back into the house, where for some time 
they three remained talking together about the little chit 
chat of the parish, and the news of the family, in its va- 
rious ramifications, now extending year by year. Above 
all, the minister liked to hear and to talk about his eldest 
and favorite grandchild — his name-child, too — Alexander 
Cardross Bruce. 

But on this subject, usually the never-ceasing topic at 
the Manse, Helen was for once profoundly silent. Even 
when her father had dropped asleep, as in his feebleness 
of age he frequently did in the very midst of conversa- 
tion, she sat restlessly fingering her wedding-ring, and an- 
other which she wore as a sort of guard to it, the only 
jewel she possessed. It was a very large diamond, set in 
a plain hoop of gold. The earl had given it to her a few 


265 


A Noble Life . 

months after she came back to Cairn forth, when her per- 
sistent refusal of all his offered kindnesses had almost 
produced a breach between them — at least the nearest 
approach to a quarrel they had ever known. She, see- 
ing how deeply she had wounded him, had accepted this 
ring as a pledge of amity, and had worn it ever since — 
by his earnest request — until it had become as familiar 
to her finger as the one beside it. But now she kept 
looking at it, and taking it off and on with a troubled 
air. 

“ I am going to ask you a strange question, Lord Cairn- 
forth — a rude one, if you and I were not such old friends 
that we do not mind any thing we say to one another.” 

“ Say on.” 

“ Is this ring of mine very valuable ?” 

“ Rather so.” 

“ Worth how much?” 

“ You certainly are rude, Helen,” replied the earl, with 
a smile. “ Well, if you particularly wish to know, I be- 
lieve it is worth two hundred pounds.” 

“Two hundred pounds!” 

“Was that so alarming? How many times must I 
suggest that a man may do what he likes with his own ? 
It was mine — that is, my mother’s, and I gave it to you. 
I hope you are worth to me at least two hundred pounds.” 

But no cheerfulness removed the settled cloud from 
Mrs. Bruce’s face. 

“Now — answer me — you know, Helen, you always 
answer me candidly and truly, what makes you put that 
question about the ring?” 

“ Because I wished to sell it.” 


266 


A Noble Life . 


“ Sell it ! why ?” 

“I want money; in fact, I must have money — a good 
large sum,” said Helen, in exceeding agitation. “ And 
as I will neither beg, borrow, nor steal, I must sell some- 
thing to procure that sum, and this diamond is the only 
thing I have to sell. Now you comprehend?” 

“ I think I do,” was the grave answer. u My poor 
Helen !” 

She might have held out, but the tenderness of his tone 
overcame her. She turned her head away. 

“ Oh, it’s bitter, bitter ! After all these years !” 

“ What is bitter? But you need not tell me. I think 
I can guess. You did not show me your boy’s letter of 
this morning.” 

“ There it is !” 

And the poor mother, with her tears fast flowing — 
they had been restrained so long that now they burst 
out like a tide — gave way to that heart-break which 
many a mother has had to endure — the discovery that 
her son was not the perfect being she had thought him ; 
that he was no better than other women’s sons, and 
equally liable to fall away. Poor Cardross had been 
doing all sorts of wrong and foolish things, which he had 
kept to himself as long as he could, as long as he dared, 
and then had come, in an agony of penitence, and poured 
out the whole story of his errors and his miseries into 
his mother’s bosom. 

They were, happily, only errors, not sins — extravagan- 
cies in dress ; amusements and dissipations, resulting in 
serious expenses ; but the young fellow had done nothing 
absolutely wicked. In the strongest manner, and with 


267 


A Noble Life . 

the most convincing evidence to back it, he protested 
this, and promised to amend his ways, to “ turn over a 
new leaf,” if only his mother would forgive him, and find 
means to pay the heap of bills which he inclosed, and 
which amounted to much more than would be covered 
by his yearly allowance from the earl. 

“ Poor lad !” said Lord Cairnforth, as he read the letter 
twice over, and then carefully examined the list of debts 
it inclosed. “ A common story.” 

“I know that,” cried Helen, passionately. “But oh! 
that it should have happened to my son !” 

And she bowed her face upon her hands, and swayed 
herself to and fro in the bitterest grief and humiliation. 

The earl regarded her a little while, and then said, 
gently, “My friend, are you not making for yourself a 
heavy burden out of a very light matter ?” 

“A light matter? But you do not see — you can not 
understand.” 

“ I think I can.” 

“It is not so much the thing itself — the fact of my 
son’s being so mean, so dishonest as to run into debt, 
when he knows I hate it — that I have cause to hate it, 
and to shrink from it as I would from — But this is 
idle talking. I see you smile. You do not know all 
the — the dreadful past.” 

“ My dear, I do know — every thing you could tell me 
—and more.” 

“Then can not you see what I dread ? the first false 
step — the fatal beginning, of which no one can foresee 
the end? I must prevent it. I must snatch my poor 
boy like a brand from the burning. I shall go to Edin- 


268 


A Noble Life . 


burg myself to-morrow. I would start this very day if I 
could leave my father.” 

“ You can not possibly leave your father,” said the 
earl, gently but decisively. “Sit down, Helen. You 
must keep quiet.” 

For she was in a state of excitement such as, since her 
widowed days, had never been betrayed by Helen Bruce. 

“ These debts must be paid, and immediately. The 
bare thought of them nearly drives me wild. But you 
shall not pay — do not think it,” she added, almost fierce- 
ly. “ See what my son himself says — and thank God he 
had the grace to say it — that I am on no account to go 
to you ; that he 1 will turn writer’s clerk, or tutor, or any 
thing, rather than encroach farther on Lord Cairnforth’e 
generosity.’ ” 

“ Poor boy ! poor boy !” 

“ Then you don’t think him altogether a bad boy ?” 
appealed Mrs. Bruce, pitifully. “You do not fear that I 
may live to weep over the day when my son was born?” 

The earl smiled, and that quiet, half- amused smile, 
coming upon her in her excited state, seemed to soothe 
the mother more than any reasoning could have done. 

“ No, Helen, I do not think any such thing. I think 
the lad has been very foolish, and we may have been the 
same. We kept him in leading-strings too long, and 
trusted him out of them too suddenly. But as to his be- 
ing altogether bad — Helen Cardross’s son, and the min- 
ister’s grandson — nonsense, my dear.” 

Mr. Cardross might have heard himself named, for he 
stirred in his peaceful slumbers, and Helen hastily took 
her letter from Lord Cairnforth’s hand.” 


269 


A Noble Life . 

“Not a word to Kim. He is too old. No trouble 
must ever come near him any more.” 

“No, Helen. But remember your promise to do noth- 
ing till you have talked with me. It is my right, you 
know. The boy is my boy too. When will you come up 
to the Castle ? To-morrow ? Nay, to-night, if you like.” 

“ I will come to-night.” 

So, at dusk, in the midst of a wild storm, such as in 
these regions sometimes, nay, almost always succeeds 
very calm, mild autumn days, Helen appeared at the 
Castle, and went at once into the library where the earl 
usually sat. Strange contrast it was between the spa- 
cious apartment, with its lofty octagon walls laden with 
treasures of learning ; book-shelves, tier upon tier, reach- 
ing to the very roof, which was painted in fresco ; every 
ornamentation of the room being also made as perfect as 
its owner’s fine taste and lavish means could accomplish, 
and this owner, this master of it all, a diminutive figure, 
sitting all alone by the vacant fireside — before him a lit- 
tle table, a lamp, and a book. Bat he was not reading; 
he was sitting thinking, as he often did now ; he said he 
had read so much in his time that he was rather weary 
of it, and preferred thinking. Of what? the life he had 
passed through — still, uneventful, and yet a full and not 
empty human life? Or it might be, oftener still, upon 
the life to come ? 

Lord Cairnforth refused to let his visitor say one word, 
or even sit down, till he had placed her in Mrs. Camp- 
bell’s charge, to be dried and reclothed, for she was drip- 
ping wet with rain — such rain as comes nowhere but at 
Loch Beg. By -and -by she reappeared in the library, 


270 


A Noble Life. 

moving through its heavy shadows, and looking herself 
again— Ahe calm, dignified woman, “my cousin, Mrs. 
Bruce,” who sometimes appeared among Lord Cairn- 
forth’s guests, and whom, though she was too retiring to 
attract much notice, every body who did notice was sure 
to approve. 

She took her accustomed place by the earl’s side, and 
plunged at once, in Helen’s own outspoken way, into the 
business which had brought her hither. 

“ I am not come to beg or to borrow, do not think it 
— only to ask advice. Tell me, what am I to say to my 
boy ?” 

And again, the instant she mentioned her son’s name, 
she gave way to tears. Yet all the while her friend saw 
that she was very hard, and bent upon being hard ; that, 
had Cardross appeared before her at that minute, she 
would immediately have frozen up again into the stern 
mother whose confidence had been betrayed, whose prin- 
ciples infringed, and who, though loving her son with all 
the strength of her heart, could also punish him with all 
the power of her conscience, even though her heart was 
breaking with sorrow the while. 

“ I will give you the best advice I can. But, first, let 
me have his letter again.” 

Lord Cairnforth read it slowly over, Mrs. Bruce’s eager 
eyes watching him, and then suffered her to take it from 
his helpless hands, and fold it up, tenderly, as mothers do. 

“ What do you think of it?” 

“Exactly what I did this morning — that your boy has 
been very foolish, but not wicked. There is no attempt 
at deception or untruthfulness.” 


A Noble Life . 271 

“No, thank God! Whatever else he is, my son is not 
ft liar. I have prevented or conquered that.” 

“Yes, because you brought him up, as your father 
brought us up, to be afraid of nothing, to speak out our 
minds to him without fear of offending him, to stand in 
no dread of rousing his anger, but only of grieving his 
love. And so, you see, Helen, it is the same with your 
boy. He never attempts to deceive you. He tells out, 
point-blank, the most foolish things he has done — the 
most ridiculous expenses he has run into. He may be 
extravagant, but he is not untruthful. I have no doubt, 
if I sent this list to his trades-people, they would verify 
every halfpenny, and that this really is the end of the 
(ist. Not such a long list neither, if you consider. Be- 
low that two hundred pounds for which you were going 
to sell my ring.” 

“ Were going ! I shall do it still.” 

“ If you will ; though it seems a pity to part with a 
gift of mine, when the sum is a mere nothing to me, 
with my large income, which, Helen, will one day be all 
yours.” 

Helen was silent — a little sorry and ashamed. The 
earl talked with her till he had succeeded in calming her 
and bringing her into her natural self again — able to see 
things in their right proportions, and take just views of 

all. 

“Then you will trust me?” she said at last. “You 
think I may be depended upon to do nothing rashly 
when I go to Edinburg to-morrow ?” 

“ My dear, I have no intention of letting you go.” 

“But some one must go. Something must be done, 


272 


A Nolle Life . 

and I can not trust Alick to do it. My brother does not 
understand my boy,” said she, returning to her restless, 
helpless manner. She, the helpful Helen, only weak in 
this one point — her only son. 

“ Something has been done. I have already sent for 
Cardross. He will be at the Castle to-morrow.” 

Helen started. 

“ At the Castle, I said, not the Manse. No, Helen, you 
shall not be compromised ; you may be as severe as you 
like with your son. But he is my son too” — and a faint 
shade of color passed over the earl’s withered cheeks^ 
“ my adopted son, and it is time that he should know it 

“ Do you mean to tell him — ” 

“ I mean to tell him all my intentions concerning him.” 

“What! now?” 

“ Yes, now. It is the safest and most direct course, 
both for him, for you, and for me. I have been thinking 
over the matter all day, and can come to no other conclu- 
sion. Even for myself — if I may speak of myself — it is 
best. I do not wish to encroach upon his mother’s rights 
— it is not likely I should,” added the earl, with a some- 
what sad smile; “still, it is hard that during the years, 
few or many, that I have to live, I, a childless man, 
should not enjoy a little of the comfort of a son.” 

Helen sat silent with averted face. It w r as all quite 
true, and yet — 

“ I will tell you, to make all clear, the position I wish 
Cardross to hold with regard to me — shall I ?” 

Mrs. Bruce assented. 

“ Into his mother’s place he can never step ; I do not 
desire it. You must still be, as you have always been, 


273 


A Noble Life . 

and I shall now publicly give out the fact, my immediate 
successor ; and, except for a stated allowance, to be doub- 
led when he marries, which I hope he will, and early, 
Cardross must still be dependent upon his mother dur- 
ing her lifetime. Afterward he inherits all. But there 
is one thing,” he continued, seeing that Helen did not 
speak, “ I should like : it would make me happy if, on 
his coming of age, he would change his name, or add 
mine to it — be Alexander Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie, 
or simply Alexander Cardross Montgomerie. Which do 
you prefer ?” 

Helen meditated long. Many a change came and went 
over the widow’s face — widowed long enough for time 
to have softened down all things, and made her remem- 
ber only the young days — the days of a girl’s first love 
It might have been so, for she said at last, almost with a 
gasp, 

“ I wish my son to be Bruce-Montgomerie.” 

“Be it so.” 

After that Lord Cairnforth was long silent. 

Helen resumed the conversation by asking if he did 
not think it dangerous, almost wrong, to tell the boy of 
this brilliant future immediately after his errors ? 

“No; not after errors confessed and forsaken. Re- 
member, it was over very rags that the prodigal’s father 
put upon him the purple robe. But our boy is not a 
prodigal, Helen. I know him well, and I have faith in 
him, and faith in human nature — especially Cardross 
nature.” And the earl smiled. “ Far deeper than any 
harshness will smite him the consciousness of being for- 
given and trusted — of being expected to carry out in his 
18 


274 


A Noble Life. 

future life all that was a-missing in two not particularly 
happy lives, his mother’s — and mine.” 

Helen Bruce resisted no more. She could not. She 
was a wise woman — a generous and loving-hearted wom- 
an ; still, in that self-contained, solitary existence, which 
had been spent close beside her, yet into the mystery of 
which she had never penetrated, and never would pene- 
trate, there was a nearness to heaven and heavenly things, 
and a clearness of vision about earthly things which went 
far beyond her own. She could not quite comprehend 
it — she would never have thought of it herself — but shv* 
dimly felt that the earl’s judgment was correct, and that, 
strange as his conduct might appear, he was acting after 
that large sense of rightness which implies righteousness ; 
a course of action which the world so often ridicules and 
misconstrues, because the point of view is taken from an 
altitude not of this world, and the objects regarded there- 
from are things not visible, but invisible. 

Cardross appeared next day — not at home, but at the 
Castle, and was closeted there for several hours with the 
earl before he ever saw his mother. When he did — and 
it was he who came to her, for she refused to take one 
step to go to him— he flung himself on his knees before 
her and sobbed in her lap — the great fellow of six feet 
high and twenty years old — sobbed and prayed for for- 
giveness with the humility of a child. 

“Oh, mother, mother — and he has forgiven me too! 
To think what he has done for me — what he is about to 
do — me, who have had no father, or worse than nona 
Do you know, sometimes people in Edinburg — the Men- 
teiths, and so on — have taunted me cruelly about my 
father?” 


A Noble Life . 275 

“And what do you answer?” asked Helen, in a slow, 
cold voice. 

“ That he was my father, and that he was dead ; and I 
bade them speak no more about him.” 

“ That was right, my son.” 

Then they were silent till Cardross burst out again. 

“It is wonderful — wonderful! I can hardly believe 
it yet — that we should never be poor any more — you, 
mother, who have gone through so much, and I, who 
thought I should have to work hard all my days for both 
of us. And I will work !” cried the boy, as he tossed 
back his curls and lifted up to his mother a face that in 
brightness and energy was the very copy of her own, or 
what hers used to be. “ I’ll show you, and the earl too, 
how hard I can work — as hard as if for daily bread. I’ll 
do every thing he wishes me — I’ll be his right hand, as 
he says. I will make a name for myself and him too — 
mother, you know I am to bear his name?” 

“Yes, my boy.” 

“And I am glad to bear it. I told him so. He shall 
be proud of me yet, and you too. Oh, mother, mother, I 
will never vex you again.” 

And once more his voice broke into sobs, and Helen’s 
too, as she clasped him close, and felt that whatever God 
had taken away from her, He had given her as much— 
and more. 

Mother and son — widowed mother and only son — ■ 
there is something in the tie unlike all others in the 
world — not merely in its blessedness, but in its divine 
compensations. 

Helen waited till her father had retired, which he often 


276 


A Noble Life . 

did quite early, for the days were growing too long foj 
him, with whom every one of them was numbered ; and 
he listened to the wonderful news which his grandson 
told him with the even smile of old age, which nothing 
now either grieves or surprises. 

“ You’ll not be going to live at the Castle, though, not 
while I am alive, Helen?” was his first uneasy thought. 
But his daughter soon quieted it, and saw him to his bed, 
as she did every evening, bidding him good-night, and 
kissing his placid brow — placid as a child’s — just as if he 
had been her child instead of her father. Then she took 
her son’s arm — such a stalwart arm now, and walked 
with him through the bright moonlight, clear as day, to 
Cairnforth Castle. 

When they entered the library they found the earl sit- 
ting in his usual place, and engaged in his usual evening 
occupation, which he sometimes called “ the hard labor 
of doing nothing;” for, though he was busy enough in 
the daytime with a young man he had as secretary — his 
faithful old friend, Mr. Mearns, having lately died — still, 
he generally spent his evenings alone. Malcolm lurked 
within call, in case he wanted any thing; but he rarely 
did. Often he would pass hours at a time sitting as now, 
with his feeble hands folded on his lap, his head bent, 
and his eyes closed, or else open and looking out straight 
before him — calmly, but with an infinite yearning in 
them that would have seemed painful to those who did 
not know how peaceful his inmost nature was. 

But at the first sound of his visitors’ footsteps he turn- 
ed round — that is, he turned his little chair round — and 
welcomed them Heartily and brightly. 


A Noble Life . 


277 


A little ordinary talk ensued, in the which Cardross 
scarcely joined. The young man was not himself at all 
— silent, abstracted ; and there was an expression in his 
face which almost frightened his mother, so solemn was 
it, yet withal so exceedingly sweet 

The earl had been right in his conclusions ; he, with 
nis keen insight into character, had judged Cardross bet- 
ter than the boy’s own mother would have done Those 
brilliant prospects, that total change in his expected fu- 
ture, which might have dazzled a lower nature and sent 
it all astray, made this boy — Helen’s boy, with Helen’s 
nature strong in him, only the more sensible of his defi- 
ciencies as well as his responsibilities — humble, self-dis- 
trustful, and full of doubts and fears. Ten years seemed 
to have passed over his head since morning, changing 
him from a boy into a sedate, thoughtful man. 

Lord Cairnforth noticed this, as he noticed every thing ; 
and at last, seeing the young heart was too full almost to 
bear much talking, he said kindly, 

“ Cardross, give your mother that arm-chair ; she looks 
very wearied. And then, would you mind having a con- 
sultation with Malcolm about those salmon-weirs at the 
head of Loch Mhor? I know he is longing to open his 
heart to you on the subject. Go, my boy, and don’t hur- 
ry back. I want to have a good long talk with your 
mother.” 

Cardross obeyed. The two friends looked after him 
as he walked down the room with his light, active step, 
and graceful, gentlemanly figure — a youth who seemed 
born to be heir to all the splendors around him. Helen 
clasped her hands tightly together on her lap, and her 


278 


A Noble Life . 


lips moved. She did not speak, but the earl almost 
seemed to hear the great outcry of the mother’s heart 
going up to God — “Give any thing Thou wilt to me, 
only give him all!” Alas! that such a cry should ever 
fall back to earth in the other pitiful moan, “Would 
God that I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son — my 
son !” 

But it was not to be so with Helen Bruce. Her son 
was no Absalom. Her days of sorrow were ended. 

Lord Cairnforth saw how violently affected she was, 
and began to talk to her in a commonplace and practical 
manner about all that he and Cardross had been arrang- 
ing that morning. 

“And I must say that, though he will never shine at 
college, and probably his grandfather would mourn over 
him as having no learning, there is an amount of solid 
sense about the fellow with which I am quite delighted. 
He is companionable too — knows how to make use of his 
acquirements. Whatever light he possesses, he will never 
hide it under a bushel, which is, perhaps, the best quali- 
fication for the position that he will one day hold. I 
have no fear about Cardross. He will be an heir after 
my own heart — will accomplish all I wished, and possi- 
bly a little more.” 

Mrs. Bruce answered only by tears. 

“ But there is one thing which he and I have settled 
between us, subject to your approval, of course. He 
must go back to college immediately.” 

“To Edinburg?” 

“ Do not look so alarmed, Helen. No, not to Edim 
burg. It is best to break off all associations there — he 


279 


A Noble Life. 

wishes it himself. He would like to go to a new Uni- 
versity — St. Andrew’s.” 

“But he knows nobody there. He would be quite 
alone. For I can not — do you not see I can not? — leave 
my father. Oh, it is like being pulled in two,” cried 
Mrs. Bruce, in great distress. 

“Be patient, Helen, and hear. We have arranged it 
all, the boy and I. Next week we are both bound for 
St. Andrew’s.” 

“You?” 

“You think I shall be useless? that it is a man, and 
not such a creature as I, who ought to take charge o f 
your boy ?” 

The earl spoke with that deep bitterness which some- 
times, though very, very rarely, he betrayed, till he saw 
what exceeding pain he had given. 

“ Forgive me, Helen ; I know you did not mean that; 
but it was what I myself often thought until this morn- 
ing. Now I see that after all I — even I — may be the 
very best person to go with the boy, because, while keep- 
ing a safe watch over him, and a cheerful house always 
open to him, I shall also give him somebody to take care 
of. I shall be as much charge to him almost as a wom- 
an, and it will be good for him. Do you not perceive 
this?” 

Helen did, clearly enough. 

“Besides,” continued the earl, “I might, perhaps, like 
to see the world myself— just once again. At any rate, 
I shall like to see it through this young man’s eyes. He 
has not told you of our plan yet?” 

“ Not a word” 


280 


A Noble Life . 

“ That is well. I like to see he can keep faith. 1 
made him promise not, because I wanted to tell you my- 
self, Helen — I wanted to see how you would take the 
plan. Will you let us go? That is, the boy must go, 
and — you will do without me for a year?” 

“A whole year! Can not Cardross come home once 
— -just once?” 

“ Yes, I will manage it so ; he shall come, even if I can 
not,” replied the earl, and then was silent. 

“And you,” said Mrs. Bruce, suddenly, after a long 
meditation upon her son and his future, “you leave, for 
a year, your home, your pleasant life here; you change 
all your pursuits and plans, and give yourself no end of 
trouble, just to go and watch over my boy, and keep his 
mother’s heart from aching ! How can I ever thank you 
• — ever reward you ?” 

No, she never could. 

“ It is an ugly word, 1 reward ;* I don’t like it. And, 
Helen, I thought thanks were long since set aside as un- 
necessary between you and me.” 

“And you will be absent a whole year?” 

“ Probably, or a little more ; for the boy ought to keep 
two sessions at least ; and locomotion is not so easy to 
me as it is to Cardross. Yes, my dear, you will have to 
part with me — I mean I shall have to part with you — for 
a year. It is a long time in our short lives. I would 
not do it — give myself the pain of it — for any thing in 
this world except to make Helen happy.” 

“ Thank you ; I know that.” 

But Helen, full of her son and his prospects — her youth 
renewed in his youth, her life absorbed in his, seeming to 


A Noble Life . 


281 


stretch out to a future where there was no ending, knew 
not half of what she thanked him for. 

She yielded to all the earl’s plans ; and after so many 
years of resistance, bowed her independent spirit to ac- 
cept his bounty with a humility of gratitude that was al- 
most painful to both, until a few words of his led her to, 
and left her in the belief that he was doing what was 
agreeable to himself — that he really did enjoy the idea 
of a long sojourn at St. Andrew’s; and, mother-like, 
when she was satisfied on this head, she began almost to 
envy him the blessing of her boy’s constant society. 

So she agreed to all his plans cheerfully, contentedly, 
as indeed she had good reason to be contented; thank- 
fully accepted every thing, and never for a moment sus- 
pected that she was accenting a sacrifice. 



Cjrfljntr tjje 






During a whole year the Earl of Cairnforth and Mr. 
Bruce-Montgomerie — for, as soon as possible, Cardros? 
legally assumed the name — resided at that fairest of an- 
cient cities and pleasantest of Scotch Universities, St. 
Andrew’s. 

A few of the older inhabitants may still remember the 
house the earl occupied there, the society with which he 
filled it, and the general mode of life carried on by him- 
self and his adopted son. Some may recall — for indeed 
it was not easy to forget — the impression made in the 
good old town by the two new-comers when they first 
appeared in the quiet streets, along the Links and on the 
West Sands — every where that the little carriage could 
be drawn. A strange contrast they were — the small fig- 
ure in the pony-chair, and the tall young man walking 
beside it in all the vigor, grace, and activity of his bloom- 
ing youth. Two companions pathetically unlike, and 
yet always seen together, and evidently associating with 
one another from pure love. 

They lived for some time in considerable seclusion, for 
the earl’s rank and wealth at first acted as a bar to much 
seeking of his acquaintance among the proud and poor 
University professors and old-fashioned inhabitants of 
the city ; and Cardross, being the senior of most of the 


286 


A Noble Life . 

college lads, did not cultivate them much. By degrees, 
however, he became well known — not as a hard student 
— that was not his line — he never took any high college 
honors ; but he was the best golfer, the most dashing 
rider, the boldest swimmer — he saved more than one life 
on that dangerous shore ; and, before the session was half 
over, he was the most popular youth in the whole Uni- 
versity. But he would leave every thing, or give up 
every thing — both his studies and his pleasures — to sit, 
patient as a girl, beside the earl’s chair, or to follow it — 
often guiding it himself — up and down St. Andrews’ 
streets ; never heeding who looked at him, or what com- 
ments were made — as they were sure to be made — upon 
him, until what was at first so strange and touching a 
sight grew at last familiar to the whole town. 

Of course, very soon all the circumstances of the case 
came out, probably with many imaginary additions, 
though the latter never reached the ears of the two con- 
cerned. Still, the tale was romantic and pathetic enough 
to make the earl and his young heir objects of marked 
interest, and welcome guests in the friendly hospitalities 
of the place, which hospitalities were gladly requited, for 
Lord Cairnforth still keenly enjoyed society, and Card- 
ross was at an age when all pleasure is attractive. 

People said sometimes, What a lucky fellow was Mr. 
Bruce - Montgomerie ! But they also said — as no one 
could help seeing and saying — that very few fathers were 
blessed with a son half so attentive and devoted as this 
young man was to the Earl of Cairnforth. 

And meantime Helen Bruce lived quietly at the Manse, 
devoting herself to the care of her father, who still lin- 


287 


A Noble Life. 

gered on, feeble in body, though retaining most of his 
faculties, as though death were unwilling to end a life 
which had so much of peace and enjoyment in it to the 
very last. When the session was over, Cardross went 
home to see his mother and grandfather, and on his re- 
turn Lord Cairnforth listened eagerly to all the accounts 
of Cairnforth, and especially of all that Mrs. Bruce was 
doing there ; she, as the person most closely acquainted 
with the earl’s affairs, having been constituted regent in 
his absence. 

“ She’s a wonderful woman — my mother,” said Card- 
ross, with great admiration. “She has the sense of a 
man, and the tact of a woman. She is doing every thing 
about the estate almost as cleverly as you would do it 
yourself.” 

“ Is she ? It is good practice for her,” said the earl. 
“She will need it soon.” 

Cardross looked at him. He had never till then no- 
ticed, what other people began to notice, how exceeding- 
ly old the earl now looked, his small, delicate features 
withering up almost like those of an elderly man, though 
he was not much past forty. 

“You don’t mean — oh no, not that! You must not 
be thinking of that. My mother’s rule at Cairnforth is a 
long way off yet.” And — big fellow as he was — the lad’s 
eyes filled with tears. 

After that day he refused all holiday excursions in 
which Lord Cairnforth could not accompany him. It 
was only by great persuasion that he agreed to go for a 
week to Edinburg, to revisit his old haunts there, to look 
on the ugly fields where he had sown his wild oats, and 


288 


A Noble Life. 


prove to even respectable and incredulous Uncle Alick 
that there was no fear of their ever sprouting up again. 
Also, Lord Cairnforth took the opportunity to introduce 
his cousin into his own set of Edinburg friends, to famil- 
iarize the young man with the society in which he must 
shortly take his place, and to hear from them, what he 
so warmly believed himself, that Cardross was fitted to 
be heir to any property in all Scotland. 

“ What a pity ,’ 7 some added, “ that he could not be heir 
to the earldom also !” “No,” said others, “ better that 

1 the wee earl 7 (as old-fashioned folk still sometimes called 
him) should be the last Earl of Cairnforth . 77 

With the exception of those two visits, during a whole 
twelvemonth the earl and his adopted son were scarcely 
parted for a single day. Years afterward, Cardross loved 
to relate, first to his mother, and then to his children, 
sometimes with laughter, and again with scarcely re* 
pressed tears, many an anecdote of the life they two led 
together at St. Andrew’s — a real student life, yet filled at 
times with the gayest amusements. For the earl loved 
gayety — actual mirth; sometimes he and Cardross were 
as full of jests and pranks as two children, and at other 
times they held long conversations upon all manner of 
grave and earnest topics, like equal friends. It was the 
sort of companionship, free and tender, cheerful and 
bright, yet with all the influence of the elder over the 
younger, which, occurring to a young man of Cardross’s 
age and temperament, usually determines his character 
for life. 

Thus, day by day, Helen’s son developed and matured, 
becoming more and more a thorough Cardross, sound to 


289 


A Noble Life . 

the core, and yet polished outside in a manner which had 
not been the lot of any of the earlier generation, save the 
minister. Also, he had a certain winning way with him 
— a power of suiting himself to every body, and pleasing 
every body — which even his mother, who only pleased 
those she loved or those that loved her, had never pos- 
sessed. 

“ It’s his father’s way he has, ye ken,” Malcolm would 
say — Malcolm, who, after a season of passing jealousy, 
had for years succumbed wholly to his admiration of 
“Miss Helen’s bairn.” “But it’s the only bit o’ the 
Bruces that the lad’s gotten in him, thank the Lord !” 

Though the earl did not say openly “ thank the Lord,” 
still he, too, recognized with a solemn joy that the qual- 
ities he and Helen dreaded had either not been inherited 
by Captain Bruce’s son, or else timely care had rooted 
them out. And as he gradually relaxed his watch over 
the young man, and left him more and more to his own 
guidance, Lord Cairnforth, sitting alone in his house at 
St. Andrew’s — almost as much alone as he used to sit 
in the Castle library — would think, with a strange con- 
solation, that this year’s heavy sacrifice had not been in 
vain. 

Once Cardross, coming in from a long golfing match, 
broke upon one of these meditative fits, and was a little 
surprised to find that the earl did not rouse himself out 
of it quite so readily as was his wont; also that the end- 
less college stories, which he always liked so much to 
listen to, fell rather blank, and did not meet Lord Cairn- 
forth’s hearty laugh, as gay as that of a young fellow 
who could share and sympathize in them all. 

19 


290 


A Noble Life. 

“You are not well to-day,” suddenly said the lad. 
“ What have you been doing?” 

“ My usual work — nothing.” 

“But you have been thinking. What about?” cried 
Cardross, with the affectionate persistency of one who 
knew himself a favorite, and looking up in the earl’s face 
with his bright, fond eyes — Helen’s very eyes. 

“ I was thinking of your mother, my boy. You know 
it is a whole year since I have seen your mother.” 

“ So she said in her last letter, and wondered when 
you intended coming home, because she misses you more 
and more every day.” 

“ You, she means, Carr.” 

“No, yourself. I know my mother wishes you would 
come home.” 

“ Does she ? And so do I. But I should have to 
leave you alone, my boy ; for if once I make the effort, 
and return to Cairnforth, I know I shall never quit it 
more.” 

He spoke earnestly — more so than the occasion seemed 
to need, and there was a weary look in his eyes which 
struck his companion. 

“Are you afraid to leave me alone, Lord Cairnforth?” 
asked Cardross, sadly. 

“ No.” And again, as if he had not answered strongly 
enough, he repeated, “ My dear boy, no !” 

“ Thank you. You never said it, but I knew. You 
came here for my sake, to take charge of me. You made 
me happy — you never blamed me — you neither watched 
men or domineered over me — still, I knew. Oh, how 
good you have been 1” 


A Noble Life. 291 

Lord Cairnforth did not speak for some time, and then 
he said, gravely, 

“ However things were at first, you must feel, my boy, 
that I trust you now entirely, and that you and I are 
thorough friends — equal friends.” 

“Not equal. Oh, never in my whole life shall I be 
half as good as you ! But I’ll try hard to be as good 
as I can. And I shall be always beside you. Remember 
your promise.” 

This was, that after he came of age, and ended his 
University career, instead of taking “the grand tour,” 
like most young heirs of the period, Cardross should set' 
tie down at home, in the character of Lord Cairnforth’s 
private secretary — always at hand, and ready in every 
possible way to lighten the burden of business which, 
even as a young man, the earl had found heavy enough, 
and as an old man he would be unable to bear. 

“I shall never be clever, I know that,” pleaded the 
lad, who was learning a touching humility, “ but I may 
be useful ; and oh ! if you would but use me, in any 
thing or every thing, I’d work day and night for you — 
I would indeed !” 

“I know you would, my son” (the earl sometimes 
called him “ my son” when they were by themselves), 
“ and so you shall.” 

That evening Lord Cairnforth dictated to Helen, by 
her boy’s hand, one of his rare letters, telling her that he 
and Cardross would return home in time for the latter’s 
birthday, which would be in a month from now, and 
which he wished kept with all the honors customary to 
the coming of age of an heir of Cairnforth. 


292 A Noble Life. 

“ Heir of Cairnforth !” The lad started, and stopped 
Writing. 

“It must be so, my son ; I wish it. After your moth 
er, you are my heir, and I shall honor you as such ; aft- 
erward you will return here alone, and stay till the ses- 
sion is over ; then come back, and live with me at the 
Castle, and fit yourself in every way to become — what I 
can now wholly trust you to be — the future master of 
Cairnforth.” 

And so, as soon as the earl’s letter reached the penin- 
sula, the rejoicings began. The tenantry knew well 
enough who the earl had fixed upon to come after him, 
but this was his first public acknowledgment of the fact, 
Helen’s position, as heiress presumptive, was regarded as 
merely nominal ; it was her son, the fine young fellow 
whom every body knew from his babyhood, toward 
whom the loyalty of the little community blazed up in 
a height of feudal devotion that was touching to see. 
The warm Scotch heart — all the warmer, perhaps, for a 
certain narrowness and clannishness, which in its pride 
would probably, nay, certainly, have shut itself up against 
a stranger or an inferior — opened freely to “ Miss Helen’s” 
son and the minister’s grandson, a young man known to 
all and approved by all. 

So the festivity was planned to be just the earl’s com- 
ing of age over again, with the difference between June 
and December, which removed the feasting-place from 
the lawn to the great kitchen of the Castle, and caused 
bonfires on the hill-tops to be a very doubtful mode of 
jubilation. The old folk — young then — who remem- 
bered the bright summer festival of twenty-four years 


293 


A Noble Life. 

ago told many a tale of that day, and how the u puir wee 
earl” came forward in his little chair and made his brief 
speech, every word and every promise of which his after 
life had so faithfully fulfilled. 

“ The heir’s a wise-like lad, and a braw lad,” said the 
old folks of the clachan, patronizingly. “ He’s no that 
ill the noo, and he’ll aiblins grow better, ye ken ; but nae- 
body that comes after will be like him . We’ll ne’er see 
anither Earl o’ Cairnforth.” 

The same words which Mr. Menteith and the rest had 
said when the earl was born, but with what a different 
meaning ! 

Lord Cairnforth came back among his own people 
amid a transport of welcome. Though he had been long 
away, Mrs. Bruce and other assistants had carried out his 
plans and orders so successfully that the estate had not 
suffered for his absence. In the whole extent of it was 
now little or no poverty ; none like that which, in his 
youth, had startled Lord Cairnforth into activity upon 
hearing the story of the old shepherd of Loch Mhor. 
There was plenty of work, and hands to do it, along the 
shores of both lochs ; new farms had sprung up, and new 
roads been made ; churches and schools were built as oc- 
casion required ; and though the sheep had been driven 
a little higher up the mountains, and the deer and grouse 
fled farther back into the inland moors, still Cairnforth 
village was a lovely spot, inhabited by a contented com- 
munity. Civilization could bring to it no evils that were 
not counteracted by two strong influences — (stronger 
than any one can conceive who does not understand the 
peculiarities almost feudal in their simplicity, of country 


294 


A Noble Life . 

parish life in Scotland) — a minister like Mr. Cardross, 
and a resident proprietor like the Earl of Cairnforth. 

The earl arrived a few days before the festival day, and 
spent the time in going over his whole property from one 
end to the other. He took Mrs. Bruce with him. “I 
3an’t want you for a day now, Helen,” said he, and made 
her sit beside him in his carriage, which, by dint of vari- 
ous modern appliances, he could now travel in far easier 
than he used to do, or else asked her to drive him in the 
old familiar pony-chaise along the old familiar hill-side 
roads, whence you look down on either loch — sometimes 
on both — lying like a sheet of silver below. 

Many a drive they took every day, the weather being 
still and calm, as it often is at Cairnforth, by fits and 
snatches, all winter through. 

“I think there never was such a place as this place,” 
the earl would often say, when he stopped at particular 
points of view, and gazed his fill on every well-known 
outline of the hills and curve of the lochs, generally end- 
ing with a smiling look on the face beside him, equally 
familiar, which bad watched all these things with him for 
more than thirty years. “ Helen, I have had a happy 
life, or it seems so, looking back upon it. Remember, I 
said this, and let no one ever say the contrary.” 

And in all the houses they visited — farm, cottage, or 
bothie — every body noticed how exceedingly happy the 
earl looked, how cheerfully he spoke, and how full of in- 
terest he was in every thing around him. 

“ His lordship may live to be an auld man yet,” said 
some one to Malcolm, and Malcolm indignantly repudi- 
ated the possibility of any thing else. 


295 


A Noble Life. 

The minister was left a little lonely during this week 
of Lord Cairnforth’s coming home, but he did not seem 
to feel it. He felt nothing very much now except pleas- 
ure in the sunshine and the fire, in looking at the outside 
of his books, now rarely opened, and in watching the 
bright faces around him. He was made to understand 
what a grand festival was to be held at Cairnforth, and 
the earl took especial pains to arrange that the feeble 
octogenarian should be brought to the Castle without 
fatigue, and enabled to appear both at the tenants’ feast 
in the kitchen, and the more formal banquet of friends 
and neighbors in the hall — the grand old dining-room — 
which was arranged exactly as it had been on the earl’s 
coming of age. 

However, there was a difference. Then the board was 
almost empty, now it was quite full. With a carefulness 
that at the time Helen almost wondered at, the earl col- 
lected about him that day the most brilliant gathering he 
could invite from all the country round — people of fam- 
ily, rank, and wealth — above all, people of worth ; who, 
either by inherited position, or that high character which 
is the best possession of all, could confer honor by their 
presence, and who, since “a man is known by his friends,” 
would be suitable and creditable friends to a young man 
just entering the world. 

And before all these, with Helen sitting as mistress at 
the foot of the table, and Helen’s father at his right hand, 
the Earl of Cairnforth introduced, in a few simple words, 
his chosen heir. 

“ Deliberately chosen,” he added ; “ not merely as be- 
ing my cousin and my nearest of kin, but because he is 


296 


A Noble Life. 

his mother’s son, and Mr. Cardross’s grandson, and won 
thy of them both — also because, for his own sake, I re- 
spect him, and I love him. I give you the health of Al- 
exander Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie.” 

And then they all wished the young man joy, and the 
dining-hall of Cairnforth Castle rang with hearty cheers 
for Mr. Bruce-Montgomerie. 

No more speeches were made, for it was noticed that 
Lord Cairnforth looked excessively wearied ; but he kept 
his place to the last Of the many brilliant circles that 
he had entertained at his hospitable board, none were 
ever more brilliant than this; none gayer, with the gen- 
ial, wholesome gayety which the earl, of whom it might 
truly be said, 

“A merrier man 

I never spent an hour’s talk withal,” 

knew so well how to scatter around him. By what magic 
he did this, no one ever quite found out ; but it was done, 
and especially so on this night of all nights, when, after 
his long absence, he came back to his own ancestral home, 
and appeared again among his own neighbors and friends. 
They long remembered it — and him. 

At length the last carriage rolled away, and shortly 
afterward the wind began suddenly to rise and howl 
wildly round the Castle. There came on one of those 
wild winter-storms, common enough in these regions — 
brief, but fierce while they last. 

“ You can not go home,” said the earl to Mrs. Bruce, 
who remained with him, the minister having departed 
with his son Duncan early in the evening. “ Stay here 
till to-morrow. Cardross, persuade your mother. You 


A Noble Life. 


297 


never jet spent a night under mj roof. Helen, will you 
do it this once? I shall never ask you again.” 

There was an earnest entreaty in his manner which 
Helen could not resist ; and, hardly knowing why she 
did it, she consented. Her son went off to his bed, fairly 
worn out with pleasurable excitement, and she staid with 
Lord Cairnforth, as he seemed to wish, for another half 
hour. They sat by the library fire, listening to the rain 
beating and the wind howling — not continuously, but 
coming and going in frantic blasts, which seemed like the 
voices of living creatures borne on its wings. 

“Do you mind, Helen, it was just such a night as this 
when Mr. Menteith died, before I went to Edinburg? The 
sort of wind that, they say, is always sent to call away 
souls. I know not why it is, or why there should be any 
connection between things material and immaterial, com- 
prehensible and wholly incomprehensible, but I often sit 
here and fancy I should like my soul to be called away 
in just such a tempest as this — to be set free, 

“ ‘ And on the wings of mighty winds 
Go flying all abroad,’ 

as the psalm has it. It would be glorious — glorious ! sud- 
denly to find one’s self strong, active — cumbered with no 
burden of a body — to be all spirit, and spirit only.” 

As the earl spoke, his whole face, withered and worn 
as it was, lighted up and glowed, Helen thought, almost 
like what one could imagine a disembodied soul. 

She answered nothing, for she could find nothing to 
say. Her quiet, simple faith was almost frightened at 
the passionate intensity of his, and the nearness with 
which he seemed to realize the unseen world. 


m 


A Noble Life. 


“ I wonder,” he said again — “ I sometimes sit for hours 
wondering — what the other life is like — the life of which 
we know nothing, yet which may be so near to us all. I 
often find myself planning about it in a wild, vague way, 
what I am to do in it — what God will permit me to do— 
and to be. Surely something more than He ever per- 
mitted here.” 

“ I believe that,” said Helen. And after her habit of 
bringing all things to the one test and the one teaching, 
she reminded him of the parable of the talents: “ I think,” 
she added, “ that you will be one of those whom, in re- 
quital for having made the most of all his gifts here, He 
will make ‘ruler over ten cities’ — at least, if he is a just 
God.” 

“He is a just God. In my worst trials I have never 
doubted that,” replied Lord Cairnforth, solemnly. And 
then he repeated those words of St. Paul, to which many 
an agonized doubter has clung, as being the last refuge 
of sorrow — the only key to mysteries which sometimes 
shake the firmest faith — “ ‘ For now we see through a 
glass darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, 
but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ ” 

When Helen rose to retire, which was not till mid- 
night — for the earl seemed unwilling to let her go, say- 
ing it was so long since they had had a quiet talk to- 
gether — he asked her earnestly if she were content about 
her son. 

“ Perfectly content Not merely content, but happy 
—happier than I once thought it possible to be in this 
world. And it is you who have done it all — you who 
have made my boy what he is. But he will reward you 


A Noble Life. 299 

— I know he will. Henceforward he will be as much 
your son as mine.” 

“I hope so. And now good-night, my dear.” 

“ Good-night — God bless you.” 

Mrs. Bruce knelt down beside the chair, and touched 
with her lips the poor, useless hands. 

“ Helen,” said the earl as she rose, “kiss me — just once 
— as I remember your doing when I was a boy — a poor, 
lonely, miserable boy.” 

She kissed him very tenderly, then went away and 
left him sitting there in his little chair, opposite the fire, 
alone in the large, splendid, empty room. 

****** 

****** 

Helen Bruce could not sleep that night. Either the 
day’s excitement had been too much for her, or she was 
disturbed by the wild winds that went shrieking round 
the Castle, reminding her over and over again of what 
the earl had just said concerning them. There came into 
her mind an uneasy feeling about her father, whom for 
so many years she had never left a night alone ; but it 
was useless regretting this now. At last, toward morn- 
ing, the storm gradually lulled. She rose, and looked 
out of her window on the loch, which glittered in the 
moonlight like a sea of glass. It reminded her, with an 
involuntary fancy, of the sea “ clear as glass, like unto 
crystal,” spoken of in the fourth chapter of the Apoca- 
lypse as being “before the Throne.” She stood looking 
at it for a minute or so, then went back to her bed and 
slept peacefully till daylight. 

She was dressing herself, full of quiet and happy 


300 


A Noble Life. 

thoughts, admiring the rosy winter sunrise, and planning 
all she meant to do that day, when she was startled by 
Mrs. Campbell, who came suddenly into the room with a 
face as white and rigid as marble. 

“ He’s awa’,” she said, or rather whispered. 

“Who is away?” shrieked Helen, thinking at once of 
her father. 

“ Whisht !” said the old nurse, catching hold of Mrs. 
Bruce as she was rushing from the room, and speaking 
beneath her breath ; “ whisht ! My lord’s deid ; but we’ll 
no greet ; I canna .greet. He’s gane awa’ hame.” 

No, it was not the old man who was called. Mr. Car- 
dross lived several years after then — lived to be nearly 
ninety. It was the far younger life — young, and yet 
how old in suffering! — which had thus suddenly and un- 
expectedly come to an end. 

The earl was found dead in his bed, in his customary 
attitude of repose, just as Malcolm always placed him, 
and left him till the morning. His eyes were wide open, 
so that he could not have died in his sleep. But how, 
at what hour, or in what manner he had died — whether 
the summons had been slow or sudden, whether he had 
tried to call assistance and failed, or whether, calling no 
one and troubling no one, his fearless soul had passec^ 
and chosen to pass thus solitary unto its God, none ever 
knew or ever could know, and it was all the same now. 

He died as he had lived, quite alone. But it did not 
seem to have been a painful death, for the expression of 
his features was peaceful, and they had already settled 
down into that mysteriously beautiful death-smile which 
is never seen on any human face but once. 


A Noble Life. Sul 

Helen stood and looked down upon it — the deai famil- 
iar face, now, in the grandeur of death, suddenly grown 
strange. She thought of what they had been talking 
about last night concerning the world to come. Now he 
knew it all. She did not “greet;” she could not In 
spite of its outward incompleteness, it had been a noble 
life — an almost perfect life ; and now it was ended. He 
had had his desire ; his poor helpless body cumbered him 
no more — he was “ away.” 

****** 

It was a bright winter morning the day the Earl of 
Cairnforth was buried — clear hard frost, and a little snow 
— not much — snow never lies long on the shores of Loch 
Beg. There was no stately funeral, for it was found that 
he had left express orders to the contrary ; but four of 
his own people, Malcolm Campbell and three more, took 
on their shoulders the small coffin, scarcely heavier than 
a child’s, and bore it tenderly from Cairnforth Castle to 
Cairnforth kirk-yard. After it came a long, long train 
of silent mourners, as is customary in Scotch funerals. 
Such a procession had not been witnessed for centuries 
in all this country-side. Ere they left the Castle the fu- 
neral prayer was offered up by Mr. Cardross, the last time 
the good old minister’s voice was ever heard publicly in 
his own parish, and at the head of the coffin walked, as 
chief mourner, Cardross Bruce-Montgomerie, the earl’s 
adopted son. 

And so, laid beside his father and mother, they left 
him to his rest. 

According to his own wish, his grave bears this in- 
scription, carved upon a plain upright stone, which — also 


302 A Noble Life . 

by his particular request — stands with its face toward the 
Manse windows: 

©juries (Eimmrir Stuart ittantgomeric, 

THE LAST EARL OF CAIRNFORTH. 

DIED ***** 

AGED 43 YEARS. 

44 Thy Will be done on Eaeth as it is in Heaven.” 


THE END. 




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